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Fireball<\/strong><\/p>\n The baby fattens quickly <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Louisa Adjoa Parker<\/strong> writes poetry, fiction and history. Her poetry collection Salt-sweat and Tears was published in 2007. Her poems and stories have appeared in various publications. She was highly commended by the Forward Prize, and shortlisted by the Bridport Prize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fireball The baby fattens quickly as a lamb, puts four pounds on in a month. She\u2019s a tiny fireball: her constant cries flare brightly night and day. I make her fennel tea and wash away my milk from where it runs into the creases in her neck. My sister\u2019s gone to Switzerland. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9763"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9766,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9763\/revisions\/9766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nas a lamb, puts four pounds on
\nin a month. She\u2019s a tiny fireball:
\nher constant cries flare brightly
\nnight and day. I make her fennel tea
\nand wash away my milk from where
\nit runs into the creases in her neck.
\nMy sister\u2019s gone to Switzerland.
\nThe baby likes it when we dance
\nand I sing along to Neneh Cherry.
\nSeven seconds soon becomes her song.
\nI have to see her belly rise and fall.
\nI have to make sure death
\nisn\u2019t just around the corner.
\nI have to make sure it won\u2019t come
\nand crash into our lives again.<\/p>\n