[Julie Steiner]

Hi, Carl!

Disturbing and mysterious, in a chant-like way. Interesting.

I'm out of my depth, so let's see if I turn into a blue and bloated cadaver, heh.

If you changed "The sky, like someone's udder, squirts" into "The sky, a sort of udder, squirts," that might preserve the vague gesture of the original without the distraction of conjuring a bare-breasted, lactating woman. Having been one of those, and also having milked goats by hand for many years, I'm more inclined to see the latter here, with beams of light slanting through clouds, on a hot and muggy day in which the longed-for cooling rain won't come. Such an image suggests the single channel of milk streaming from each teat of a member of the Bovidae family, rather than the multiple channels of milk squirting out from each nipple of "someone" human. (Of course, what I'm picturing might not necessarily be the image that the poet intended, which is a constant danger.)

Since I am now a crone who often feels hotter and sweatier than I want to be, I can't imagine peri- or post-menopausal women choosing to climb into a literal sauna on such a day. Although the imagery of the sauna seems clear, I wonder if the crones are actually canning summer produce for the winter, using the water-bath method, and thus generating steam. Only the threat of future starvation could drive me into more heat on a hot day.

The mention of reeds makes me think that "wider" would be better than "deeper" at that point of the river, and poem. The drowned kid can still be out of his depth later.

I wonder if the diction of "kids," which I at first took to mean young goats rather than children, is a good fit.

I don't know if any of this is helpful, but it's offered in case it might be. And to express appreciation for what you've done with a difficult piece.