When I read my poem about stretch marks
you said it was a funny thing
to write about. I felt a flare,
low down, an orange hazed ember
you’d have to blow into life.
Because they’re not very nice
to look at you said.
The flame caught, scorched
through the soft cradle
of my belly,
up past the hard rib arch,
roared, iron-smelting pale
into the furnace of my chest,
gathered in a fully dilated,
crowning, heaving blast
I could splatter into your face,
searing, dripping.
I pressed my hands together,
palm against palm, pushed the bony jut
of my chin into my crossed thumbs,
my tented fingers firm against my
neatly stitched lips.
Sue Butler took up both walking and Creative Writing in retirement from a career in General Practice; both unpredictable forms of meditation on life, its grace, pain and peculiarity. Her pamphlet Learning from the Body is published by Yaffle