You weren’t interested in being a mother
till you were a mother, to Sharnie. There you were – legs uncrossed
wider than unladylike, wider than your dad’s about!
– giving birth on your top bunk.
Sharnie was born a ringleted blonde, already dressed in pink.
But she had steel, you saw it in her baby blues.
You stripped her, sewed and shoved her fists into a tartan smock,
you shaved her head, pierced her ears with drawing pins
and her nose, eyebrows, cheeks,
the appleyist bits, then her hands and feet, between
the rolls of her legs, the tyres of chub, her belly
was made of the softest stuff.
Some nights, when you jigged her to sleep after a feed,
the pins would prick your own hands, so you slapped her,
Bad girl! How could you do this to me?
Her mouth so tiny, so pink-pursed she had to whisper, her only register.
She ate like you. Everything her mother gave her,
which was too much, of everything.
Turkey slices so thick we had to suck them back down
from the vaults of our mouths.
And the French bread so buttered we made knives of our fingers,
scraped and smooshed it into the daisy carpet.
We did not complain, but we blinked at each other.
We recognised our ruin.
That poor doll, your mother said, if only she could speak,
she’d cry out for mercy!
Yes, Mother, my baby girl, my pierced angel,
she’d cry out for mercy.
Competing Interests
The author has no competing interests to declare.