birthday

I see her each morning perched on the sofa arm
her limbs lengthening by the day
her health filling our home

that she came from my body!
a memory so huge I forget day to day

- for if I remembered that roundness,
that sever pressing, that ancient definition of woman
how could I do the dishes, sort the laundry
bring her breakfast?

she watches ‘A Midsummer’s Night Dream’
cartoon, rising to the air for her
bowl of cornflakes, milk and honey,
the smell of morning, six years of mornings
making hazy again the thoughts of her birth

for Laura