My brother says my milk smells different

Meaning different from his wife’s, meaning
a melody all my own, playing in my body
like the song the headphoned girl on the bus
mouths the words to—silent for the rest of us, a tune
only when we press her lips to our ear.

A friend stored her milk in a humming freezer,
rows and rows of pumped bottles, icy blue-white
diamonds tucked away in the basement, glowing
dumbly each time she pulled open the door—
plentitude, mass, sweetness contained.

Or unleashed: two long seams of milk, petalled
stains flushing my shirt front, the way migrating
monarchs hang in delicate clumps from eucalyptus—
near-still garlands, just the faint backbeat of their wings
ready to erupt and take flight like a song.