What would you achieve
if years upon this Earth you’d only three?
Or maybe five.
His time is short, the hummingbird;
he’s busy, but he’s purposeful and present

- he’s alive.

How far would you fly
if you’d been born with brightly coloured wings
and his view of things?
His tiny body floats, the hummingbird;
he’s gliding in reverse,
so elevated, powerful and spry
and though he’s miniature

- he’s high.

What sweetness would you find if you took just enough to feed yourself? Leave some behind; ambrosia for the glittering. He knows no greed, the hummingbird; he works to…

You walk beside me
over broken ground
in circles and squiggles
that we made,
e x p l o r i n g
where our paths cross.

You work beside me
under piles of paper
decorated with doodles
that we made
d e s i g n i n g
this life, side by side.

You play beside me
over lawns and fields;
games with silly rules
that we made up
just so we can
b e n d
and break them.

You sleep beside me under blankets stained with splotches and scribbles that we made c r e a…

Actually, I don’t have one at all now.
That thing you stand on

when you want to know whether
the running on e m p t y and
the half-packet of biscuits and
the pains and
the wine and
the clock-watching
have made any difference,

or whether it’s hopeless. In which case
there will be more biscuits and wine
followed by a headache and a longer run,
before settling in
for a night of clock-watching,
whilst r a t t l i n g
amidst deafening vibrations of vacuity
and pretending it’s because
the washing machine is on full spin.

…

We’ll grow and learn between these walls;
a place to play and think and rest
and listen to the night owls’ calls.

A place to hide while Spring rain falls;
a humble, homely little nest.
We’ll grow and learn between these walls.

We need not space (nor fancy halls),
we’ll tuck in tight and try our best
to listen to the night owls’ calls.

The chicks will chirp, a baby bawls;
I’ll hold you tightly to my chest.
We’ll grow and learn between these walls.

The sun gets high and then she falls; to light’s defeat we can attest as…

I am the soft, quivering mess
that sits between you
as you watch TV.
Love, birth, growth, repeat:
you grew
from the rawest Me.

Together, we’ve been
squeezing every drop out of your childhood
stretching every fibre of my patience
siphoning every second out of every day
out of every year
since you arrived.

As I sit pulsating with love and rage
and fear and wonder,
I watch the moments between now
and when you no longer need me,
disappearing faster than your dessert.

Where once you lay for hours and fed, my breast is now a place of rest…

I’ll often climb a gate
instead of opening it
just because I can.
My bendy body lets me,
wants to,
finds it joyous
to spend half-a-second in the air
before it meets the Earth.
As I take off,
like bird from branch,
I’m temporarily unstuck from life:
those red kites understand.

If I look back, there’s a dogwalker sniggering, thinking I am too blonde and stupid, frail and female, to work the mechanism or lift the weight. Sometimes they helpfully point out that there’s a lever on the gate or lift the rope from ‘round the post, which they assume…

Isn’t it funny how many feelings we fight?

What if we let them fall and settle,
like the dew at night?
Like rain and snow and petals;
particles of dust that shower down
in shafts of light.

When winter comes,
we do not tell it that it’s wrong.
We might still wish it on its way,
but make no effort to deny
or disprove winter, while it stays.
(And what a foolish thing that would be,
to see white coats appear around each tree
and argue that it shouldn’t be.)

When days get cold, we do not force our naked…