Ever since,

I’ve put crumb-covered knives back into tubs of spread,
and left six half-read books down the side of my bed.
(I know I’ll enjoy finding and re-reading them one day
and there’s no room on the shelf anyway.)

I drink gin out of coffee cups

and cheap coffee from a small bowl
which used to be a cup,
(but I dropped it and broke the handle off.
Sometimes I like to use it for nuts.)

I cut wild branches from hedgerows

and stand them in empty bottles
on a windowsill that’s cracked and chipped. …

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…

You look at the clock:
“it’s seventy to seven”.
No, it’s ten to six.

But you are not wrong.
I see that you understand
the concept of time.

I smile with deep pride;
questioning and challenging –
your eyes are like mine.

We hold hands, you throw
stones, kick dirt and pick up sticks
as we walk along.

We watch the wild birds
and promise to come back here
again tomorrow.

Time will win the race:
running as fast as we can,
we cannot beat it.

But I will have won if I can make it back home still holding…

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…