Lines from a Book on Famine

(found in Famine: A Short History, by Cormac Ó Gráda)

During the Leningrad blockade
of 1941-43
an emaciated mother whose breast milk
had run out
XXXXXXXXXopened
a vein in her arm
and put her baby’s mouth
to the wound

which it sucked eagerly.

Both
mother and baby
survived.
______________________

(Note: Xs to be read as spaces. Whenever I try to deviate from the left margin, Blogger, like a demented pedagogue, slams me back to it. A similar thing happens when I try to put an extra space under the post title: Blogger eradicates it. If anyone reading knows a way around this, permitting more flexible spacing, could you advise me care of Biblioasis.publicity@gmail.com? I would appreciate it greatly. These primitive expedients take me back to my mimeo days. A not entirely unwelcome regression, but still....)