sleeping on a 12-hour car ride

I take it hungrily at odd angles, my head bobbing like a newborn's until it sinks drowsily to the nearest surface--Jude's carseat or the hard, grey plastic of the car door, my back shlumped over, the window hot and sweaty on my face.

I wake up to moments of flat, scrubby land, passing in whirls of browns and muted greens, and then fall helplessly back.

Would that I could slip this sleep into a hip flask, take hits throughout the day when the lack hits like a hot flash, or long guzzling draughts in the still hours of the night when my ears strain into the darkness for quiet cries, my breasts hot and full of milk, waiting for him to drain them as if from an aquifer, my breasts like porous stone.

I awake with red sweaty lines across my face, drooling, drunk on the stuff.