Coffee

He invites her to coffee

all of his senses speak

except his lips

all of his senses touch

except his hands

under his chin

his coffee simmers,

dissenting its binding

one more meaningless conversation,

and they part.

Grass

Why does grass submit?

rain falls, it absorbs

sun induces, it grows

wind blows, it kneels

under a layer of snow,

it sits cold and oppressed,

Why doesn’t it protest?

I’m still learning to sleep in the middle of the bed

but I wake on my side with nobody on yours

and I

submit.

MirrorMother

In this unforgiving mirror

I sometimes find my mother’s scornful face and recall our years of war,

her spiteful contempt to my resemblance of the man who never gave her her dreams

how I leeched on the lifelong resentment, stating my disdaining gratitude for that truth.

why did time in such slow and condescending sarcasm prove us both wrong?

and why do I look at my daughter’s face and secretly wish she was more mine?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birth

When they handed you to me

I couldn’t reach out and hold you,

I froze.

A tiny bag of red skin with a bruised head

from when they vacuumed you out of my body

I wish I did take you,

that’s what a mother in a Hollywood film would have done;

take her screaming, alien like, slimy, blooded baby into her arms and kiss her.

That’s what a mother cat would have done; lick the slime off her kitten’s fur.

There, on the awkward delivery chair, my head hung like Christ

my thighs wide apart, my wound pouring blood, delivering my broken placenta

every bone in my body shifted out of its place in revolution of pushing you out

every bit of me gave you.

Winter Morning

It was a cold winter morning

I taught her to hold the edges of her cuffs with her tiny fingers

while I screwed another woolly jumper on to her head

pulling her arms through another pair of sleeves

the rim of the undergarment slightly peeking through.

I wanted to spare her the discomfort of the first sleeve pulled up

and gathered at her elbow; she was almost three

and delighted with the new discovery, she did it every morning since

“shall I let go now mummy?”

Love makes us do that;

spare them the discomfort of things

life’s little troubles

the small anxieties often overlooked;

I wondered how many of life’s discomforts I’ll be able to spare her

I wondered if my remedies would continue to delight her

I wondered if I would have the remedy at all.