You are a piece of shattered peace, a maelstrom

scattering the fragments of your childhood

                               wildly on the wind.

                                                            And now

you’ve claimed your adolescence like a rainwash,

sweeping both of us down slopes of saneness

                ‘til rock-bottom seems a target

                              that we’re never going to reach.
But this isn’t really about puberty,

                                                          your ripening,

those hormones brooding you in moodiness

and thunderbolts

                                and bite.

                                                             Nor birthing,

the queerness of my belly’s sudden emptiness,

the way my foreign body

                                              so readily transfigured

                               whimpers into milk.
This is about

                             your first external storm,

the one that howled a tantrum

                             through gnashing gums outside.

You clung to me, my umbilicus. I thrilled to hear

your breath grizzling my ear, your head nestled

tight in that concavity

                              where shoulder meets the neck,

a niche so vulnerable

                                                  that it doesn’t have a name.
And this is about

               your first steps,

                               when you were in such a rush

to be everywhere at once

that you weaned your neediness with bruises

                                         and broken bones:

it scared me that everyone would think

                                I’d battered you,

as you proudly itemised your battle blemishes,

the mnemonics you’ll always list upon your skin.
This is about wanting to push fast-forward:

to confirm that all those yesterdays

                             of I don’t know,

                                                and later on,

                   and maybe, maybe, maybe,

                                             and close the bloody door,

will form a healthy scab; that we’ll both recall

the delicate cord we used to share, the melody

                 of syncopated hearts,

                                            the effort of letting go;

that one day you’ll be content to carry

                a little bit of me around with you.
And I will touch that precious hollow

               that doesn’t have a name

                                and remember how it feels

to hold someone you love

                                           when the world roars.