New Arrivals
Poems written about my own children.
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One Year In
One year in, still adjusting to the title: mother.
Although, all you have to do is push out a child.
No previous experience required, no particular books
on the reading list. Life is now more weather-
dependant than before (must remember rain cover); it’s writing
shopping lists daily, and it’s the constant teaching
of tiny skills (no biting! no scratching!). Still, teaching
undergraduates feels remarkably similar: mother-
henning them to remember to keep to their writing
deadlines; getting emails more whiney than my child
gets before lunchtime; awkward tutorial chat about the weather
and knowing they’ll ignore my recommended books.
I am amused, daily, at the variety of books
I now read: Postman Bear, and the ones teaching
us Baby’s First Words (toys, vehicles, the weather,
xylophones and zebras), versus Sylvia Plath’s mother-
struggles, or Shakespeare’s ‘But were some child
of yours alive that time…’, or reverend academics writing
for a coterie of other academics (or for students writing
essays that will quickly be forgotten). Books,
once almost sacred, are now roughly pulled from shelves by my child
(considerate treatment of books is something we’re still teaching),
and reading is a rare luxury, it seems, for a mother.
It’s hard to see, at this point, whether
or not I’ll get back to the books. The weather
outside today is gloomy; a wet day, good for writing
poetry. Except that we need bananas and milk. Mother-
duties beckon. It’s time to leave the books,
to pack away the photocopied teaching
resources, to wrestle a snowsuit onto a child
and march to the shops. Because this child
is my greatest achievement to date. Whatever the weather,
his smile chases my clouds. He is teaching
us, constantly, as together we are writing
a family. Creating, making (ignoring the books
on parenting, and ‘helpful’ advice on being mother
and father to this child). With him, we’re writing
songs, poems, our story – whether or not they’ll end up in books
or albums. He is teaching me to be a mother.
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For E
​
Your
smile is the shape of pure joy,
the
outline
of
sheer happiness, loved boy.
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Night Feed
Your small hand grips my wrist in an almost caress
which would be far less tender were you not
on the verge of sleep. Ignoring this
I choose to accept your trailing fingertips
as unadulterated affection,
a return of the gentleness
that you inspire in me, my youngest.
It occurs to me that you may one day
perfect this caress upon the wrist of a lover;
but for this moment, we are all to each other.
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