We could tell there was something
we weren’t allowed to know. Something
kept hidden from us children

When the waters broke we were
out there, borderless, with just
a view of bloodshot sky from
the labour suite

Stripping wallpaper
leaves naked the scrawls
of yesteryear’s children,
small forecasts of flights
that are inevitable.

  Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep       Goodnight moon, goodnight stars, goodnight cherry, pear, apple tree. Goodnight pond, stop wriggling, newts, stop zipping the water, water-boatmen. Goodnight, glossy horses on the hill, rabbits in the field, white...

an etherial whiteness 

that covers and disguises

as a strip of white frosted glass 

Ambling up North Street
on a Saturday afternoon
at the end of a long Winter,

I am stopped by two women

Lavender seeps. I expect my limbs to leaden, lead the body down through sheet, mattress-cover, into the machinery of sleep where other lives exist.

The Still Face Experiment 

You must have seen that Youtube clip 

where a mother lets her face go dead. 

Her toddler carries on burbling for twenty to thirty seconds until she realises there is nothing coming back to her.