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Lost for words Jun 2017
Hearing you moan about the baby weight
While warming up the Cow and Gate
Droopy tum and ***** ****** dry
And how they leak at every cry
Your body will never be the same
Ever since the baby came
Constantly exhausted beyond all belief
When they finally sleep through, dear God, the relief
Training and tantrums, toddlers are trying
You learn to accept they never stop crying
Oh to be one of those wretched souls!
Sterilising bottles and benches and bowls
Gaining those precious protective pounds
Awakening to those unmistakable sounds
Washing and folding and wiping and feeding
All the work that comes with breeding
And now the sun sets on that part of my life
Never a mother, only a wife
For all those hopes that didn't make it
Bun in the oven but unable to bake it
Trying not to envy and regret and hate
But I just can't shift the baby wait...
Claire Bircher Dec 2010
A metallic seat.
Hard orange plastic.
Strip light sickness.
And I look at you.

Disinfectant scrubs my throat,
sterilising the language I want to use.
And I look at you.

Naked feet, white tinged with yellow.
Invisible socks.
Cotton top welts left in your ankles,
flattening the spidery hair.
So much hair.

And I wonder,
when did you get so tall?
And I look at you.

Sallow face, a dehydrated
caricature of youth, erased and lined.
Needles **** the marrow,
the muscle tone gone but
stubble erupting, handsome underneath.

And I wonder,
when was the last time I saw you?
And I look at you.

Frail arms, thick bandage cuffs
giving little comfort to the empty purple beneath.

And I wonder,
was it how you imagined?

Clean blade?
Neat slices?
Choreographed claret leaving a poignant splash
on your final soliloquy?
Head to camera, atmospheric lighting,
ready for your close up.
Someday you’ll be a star.

Or was it sordid?  
Brutal?
A smashed bottle?
Hacking, mangling,
uncontrollable blood
aimlessly gushing, drenching the rambling note
so the words washed away?
No camera angles.
No haunting memoir.

And I look at you.
And I wonder.
When did you become so lonely?


And I turn away.
a Aug 2015
The first thing you notice about a hospital is how clean it is.

The floors scrubbed down so hard, it would be cleaner with a more natural-looking layer of grime, because the reek of sterilising lemon-scented cleaner is sickening.

The tiles are snow but the ceilings are sludge, layers of paint unsuccessfully attempt to cover the dry rot coat, but the faeces-hue cannot be covered.

The doorways and chairs are bathed in rust, the flies not hesitating to accompany the visitors and their loved ones.

*Even the cleanest places are *****.
Really not one of my best pieces, very spur-of-the-moment. I'm using up my mobile data for this.
Paul Horne Apr 2020
Just when you’ve squeezed
the last tiny bit back,
then sat on it, stood on it,
pleaded then kneed it, over-
-bursting the seams until belted and bound,
the time for no more, surely
a long push passed, then,
only then,
a vital cog, finally found
with odd shaped sides, the sterilising kit,
for the latest child

I sigh, with a hopeful look
other child, yawns, resigned,
his job, he states, “is just to drive’
and then, “remember?”
as if I could forget.
a row to rue.

Eyes to the ceiling,
a silent protest, ( ignored )
as start the unwrap
of cheapest, his purchase,
stuck sticky brown tape
an ever reluctant prise, (for a woman)
frenetically freed, and finally
ex-mummified case, ready
to refill again.

After hands and knees,
a numbing derrière
we’re packed again,
minus heels and a skirt
thoughtfully lined
with bits of a shirt,
his, he won’t miss
bursting through holes,
here and there, thinking,
please don’t drop this,
or leave in a puddle,
my sunny vacation,
spent on a rack, or balcony, drying

And just for a second, was there
staring at endless shores, and perhaps
( close your ears, little one )
enjoying an Italian?

Not sat on a floor
in rain soaked here,
with a grumpy Greek.

— The End —