Mothers

Mothers

Mothers

I thought I was the child in this scenario.
I played the child and you loved me.
I did a grumpy face when the university
took Mr Teddy Rag-Ears,
I got words muddled like “I stood very truck
as the still went through me.”

But then today
my future child called me on the telephone
and said, in a squeaky voice, “My mum is dying,
can you come over, I need someone to talk to.”

I didn’t know where my future child lived.
I had a feeling she was called Bertha
which disappointed me.

“I live in south east west London,” she said,
“Where the spies and the cleaners live.
It’s spotless and seemingly empty.”

On the way over, a terrible pain ripped
through my stomach and I distantly
remembered a woman from my
adulthood I hadn’t seen since
that bed-wetting dream.

I passed glass conservatories on Bertha’s street.
They were acting as gallows for hanging plants,
“I like that image,” says Bertha, knotting the ties
on my hospital gown, shooing me out: “I told you
no more running away from hospital, didn’t I?”

Bertha, I went straight back. It’s disappeared —
all except the scout-hut used for art therapy
that whiffs a bit. This is my picture of mummy:
that is a tree because she’s in a forest, those are
mummy’s pink gloves and that’s an axe.