for Lisa J
1

‘Breast?’

Birthday boy, Hansel (milk-coloured, three),

lisped his request, hardly refused before then.

But it seemed the world was turning
on me – and my walking, talking suckling.

‘Will you breastfeed on his buck’s night?’

Jack’s mum pretended support, pretended

polite, as the play-group Gerties giggled.

     Cows!
I burned, long after

the candles were spat on. Party over,

I poured myself into my bra

     and Hansel forgot his attachment.
2

Look at him: lanky.

I can’t remember his last

laughing leap into my arms.

Had I known that moment

contained a final armful of boy

     I’d have held on longer.
3

The not in my throat, thick and growing,

squeezes words from the knot in my neck.

I say, ‘How will you know your way back?’
Hansel flashes his fourteen-year-old smile

and laughs as he shows me a new bread roll.

He says, ‘Worry not, Mother! No need

to remember. I’m laying a trail.’
He sees the sky sunny; I see it grey

with seagulls and sparrows

     whose insides are hollow.
The worry-knot in my chest finds its rhythm.