3. Death

Blue-bruised,
you burn with fever, 
bedsored feet parcelled in blue bootees.
Blue for a boy.

We named you Paul.
You surprised us
erupting on New Year's Eve,
as frantic as the fireworks,
and the midwife's cry,
"It's a girl!"
outsinging the 
razzle-dazzle rowdies 
in tired Trafalgar Square; 
and my mouth insanely smiling,
until I was all drum-roll, fanfare, hosanna
birthday smile.

I introduced myself,
mother to daughter,
expecting a long acquaintance.
Yet, tonight, in another ward,
you lie dumb and barely
breathing, 
your half-inch fuzz of hair
(its bounteous brown re-grown 
bitter-black)
too stark for the grey ashes 
of your face.

Dumb, but not deaf.
"She can hear," the nurses tell me 
(stoutly pink against your
fading frailness).
"Those about to die travel back in time —
sometimes decades back to their arrival
in this world —
so tell her, Mother, softly, about her
birth."

Stroking the chick-soft down,
my too-healthy hand 
against your lolling head,
my whispering voice
tiptoes through your ear,
with the hum of tubes,
the hiss of oxygen,
as I recount the
triumphant tale; 
re-play the rocket salvos,
the hallelujah flags, 
and my own Te Deum
smile.

And, suddenly,
your dark eyes 
open
and you see me 
— mother, mentor, mourner —
as fiercely close 
as in the labour ward. 
And, for one miraculous 
moment, 
you hold my gaze, 
return my birthday
smile,
as Death stalks you, 
scoops you,
scythes you
and I am left
unmothered,
mute

alone.