Poem for a birth
I remember you
as the girl with the pony tail,
big hazel eyes.
We were the same age, 23.
You needed a friend, a mother, a family.
What you got was another girl, far from home and family.
We would meet for coffees,
ride buses,
make housing applications,
pick up your script,
phone your boyfriend in prison.
You were expecting your first baby.
One you had been trying to have for years,
one you were having alone.
Your labour started on a grey spring afternoon,
after I had chummed you to the benefits office.
We were both in disbelief,
as we rushed up to the hospital.
I kept wondering, ‘Should I stay?, How can I leave you?’
You kept saying, ‘Don’t leave me.’
The ward was so busy.
The staff passed like shadows among the women.
The women’s voices reached each other like lighthouses
And I gripped the edge of the bed,
held your hand
and wondered, how?
How have we both ended up here?
But we were there.
And they were there.
And babies were born.
