Being a Mother I look back
and ask, how did we get by?
Was there too much angling after
exactness? Did I
promise you something
and fail?
Unfathomable,
the way things become,
like winter, a stretch
of bare garden.
Gone the violets,
the brittle teazels,
gone the innermost
petals.
You stop
getting out of bed.
You refuse
to live in the open.
How is the past
able to do this?
Look, does that small bird arrive
in our patch with the same
trepidation. No,
he comes adamant and free.
Gill Horitz’s poetry & essays have been published in magazines and anthologies, and a short story in Cheatin’ Heart by Serpent’s Tail. Her pamphlet, All The Different Darknesses, was published by Cinnamon Press. Gill lives near Wimborne, Dorset.