poem

Parenting

I’ve glued my daughter’s hair clips back together
pink fabric ripped, but salvageable and
a small blue heart from my own broken earrings.

I could ride my bike to the mall right now 
buy them ten times over, buy the brightest ones
the most expensive ones, ones that will survive 

small fingers and curiosity. They’ve lasted less than two months 
the trip to Kmart her first time using a public toilet, everything 
an adventure after months of lockdown, everything an adventure 

when you’re not-quite two. I could buy her new hair clips 
every day, but I won’t because one bedtime meltdown
she’d been moved away from the cat, who

puts up with more than he should, though loved
puts up with so much she thinks his tail is fair game.
She’s still learning not to squeeze so hard. I took her 

to her room, wiped streaks of tears sat opposite,
a pale green swaddle from newborn days draped
over her head and mine as she calmed, held 

my face with the gentleness I know she has
gentleness I hope for her, but hope will not be her undoing
as it so often has felt like mine…

Thank you for my joy, Mummy I checked I’d understood, Your joy?
Yes. Thank you for my joy. Thank you for dinner, Mummy.
hands still gentle, the same hands that dissected hair clips

beat fists on the ground, made the cat flinch (but never leave, 
I really feel he should sometimes just leave)
Thank you for my sparkly hair clips from Kmart, Mummy.

So I’ve glued them back together, adding a piece 
of me, knowing we’ll break and renew each other
twenty more times before morning.

Masks

Before we took our masks off

we took them on and off

off when out and on when in…

 

before we took them off when out

we wore them all the time.

 

Who knows how fresh the air was

as we walked around the block

well-practised smise  

in case we encountered 

another half concealed self.

 

But before we wore them all the time

our masks weren’t even real

we carried them with us as 

a cliched metaphor, lazy 

description of the nuances

of human interactions

O, the masks we wear, they’d say

and you’d be too bored

to even roll your eyes.

 

Before it was a cliche though

it was probably quite a good metaphor.

Not brilliant, but apt enough 

to be used into a cliche we could hide

more subtle, smising thoughts behind.

Learning to be gentle

I keep my judgements to myself, mostly

a cat claw stuck in the baby’s sleeve

causes more tears

 

than her top teeth pushing through gums

those stubborn numbers

finally in sharp descent.

 

Clusters form from a reckless traveller

while we focus on enjoying bath time

and every playground we can walk to.

 

I turn the pram around so she faces

the world head on.

I must be feeling optimistic.

 

Not knowing about thresholds

the step into the sunroom becomes

a literal tipping point

 

each morning, firm pats on a patient cat

until the patience of the cat snaps too.

Trust

The change table is a safe place, you learn
no longer protesting instead
laughing, finding your voice, kicking
to the edge raising eyebrows
until I respond.

You wake with a shout sometimes
then a smile when your dad or I
appear, faces goofy with love.
You’re all gums and drool.

One day soon you’ll sleep through
and I’ll miss our 4am meetings
when you feed with focus, then come to

that gummy smile again as you realise, I imagine,
I was here all along.

March 20th

The world is told to self-isolate just

as I might feel like mingling with the world again

I get Friday mornings off to shower, cut my nails

drink tea while it’s still hot. Rainbows in the living room

I walk around the block

 

collect two fallen frangipani flowers

an autumn garden inconsistency. Summer

a blur of pregnancy birth baby

two months measured out in feeds and naps

tears, each week I walk this walk a little quicker

 

each week things get better

before they get hard again, but mostly

there are more good days than tricky days

and never do I call them bad days.

One of my flowers blows to the ground

 

face-plants grass, stem to the sky

the other I hold as I write, bringing it to my nose

with each pause of the pen, sun-warmed

black-clad body, cheap kmart shapewear

holds my weakened core together

 

I swing my briefly baby-free arms about

the scent of good days and tricky days ahead.

Sunday 4pm

I saw you. Sunday 4pm, old hood

until then I hadn’t known for sure if you’d stayed on

although sometimes I’d find selfies framed with the familiar

white walls of a kitchen we briefly shared.

 

I knew what you were doing. Sunday 4pm

rounding the corner with your reusable shopping bag

well-trod path to TT Mart, well-browsed aisles of not-quite-fresh-enough bread

potato chips whether on special or not, the endless search for kale.

 

Most days we would laugh, dance down those aisles

criticising pop that blared through shop speakers, but falling for it too.

Wasn’t that always your way? The world is awful, you’d say

and move to its beat nonetheless.

 

Sunday, so perhaps you were headed for apple pie

to stand in front of the freezer door

staring into reflected childhood traumas

explaining away the guilt you felt at wanting dessert.

 

Deep-dish psychological reasons why

no one in your adult life should deny you your desires.

You could talk yourself into anything

with those qualifications of yours.

 

I don’t remember bad times at the TT Mart with you

but there were moments when neglecting to go

resulted in empty cupboards. I copped it.

And at least once we walked home in blue-stone silence

 

your face sinking to the shadowy state

that made my stomach flip and clench, my whole system in a holding pattern

until it could work out what I’d done wrong. Always searching for

that mysterious thing I’d done wrong.

 

Cobbled silence reached crescendo back in the kitchen

you hurled the filled bag at white walls, settled into that hollow place of yours

while I cleaned up scattered vegetables

smashed mushrooms, broken bottles.

 

Sunday 4pm and we were driving past your corner

on our way to play tennis. I hadn’t held a racket in years

six of us piled into my boyfriend’s car, a week’s worth of news

bursting to tell them we’re moving in together.

 

My new friends had heard all about you

so when I pointed to your shape moving along the footpath

they joked unrepeatably.

Jason kept an eye on you from the rear-view mirror

 

but I knew exactly where you were headed

walking solo with your empty bag.

*

Last week I spotted my ex in the neighbourhood we used to live in together. I hadn’t seen him in over a year and had at times been curious as to how I would feel if I did. I wrote this poem to show how that simple walk to the supermarket could be a microcosm of an entire confusing, anxiety-provoking and often emotionally abusive relationship. It felt so perfect that I was happily crammed into a car with some of the lovely new people in my life, being driven by a much calmer, kinder man when we saw him. Everything’s symbolic, of course, but it’s also just how things are now: safer and better; far less lonely and much more fun.

Bio

Mostly it’s easy, the days I mean

text book teaching senior biology

free periods in the staffroom. It’s a good life

I state as fact, not like saying, ‘she’s lovely…’

an epigraph to the gossip I write.

 

Suspicious of superlatives, endlessly

but hard-wired for romance

tell me I’m capable, resourceful, reliable

adore the way I follow through with things I say I’ll do

let my eyes be an after-thought.

 

And I’m probably on the brink again

because what else is there to do with this

flesh-covered universe we call body?

System of lungs and blood and gravity

tugging at us to love.

 

Anyway, turn to p80 that picture of the genome

looking to you like Dante’s hell

long-limbed chromosomes

tumbling headless towards a fiery cell

because you’re still sixteen

and haven’t understood any of this.