Poem 490

I was 28 … that doesn’t seem very old to me now – and didn’t at the time either …

( I like rain confusing the glass, the future growing strong hands, the triangle of mother father and incipient child (only a thin red heart) … )

Seven Months

I look out the window
and between the seeds of rain
confusing the glass see you
      coming back from your mother's
carrying our baby inside your coat

you think it's a boy
because that's not your
first choice
                      intuitively
I agree but statistically expect
a girl

I don't know where I'll be in a year
and you don't know where the money
will come from
                               sometimes I bow you down
with that kind of pressure
    but I took my plans apart for you
years ago then gave up the whole philosophy
of plans to bend one day
into the next as smoothly as a swimmer's
jackknife stapling of lap to lap
to sleep with you
wake up with you
                                     to fight with you
and reel off dizzy with the pain of it

you disliked my future
so I learnt to live in a moment
or a day
                 and now here you are
with a future growing strong hands
it's you who knows
what you're doing this year
and the next
                          while I stay addicted
to moments
                        like this where
I see you coming through the half-hearted rain
open the door and you show off
baby clothes bequeathed from the family
booties so small
                                   I put them on my fingers
and walk them round the table
while you laugh at the message
stitched round each one
                                                  I
                                        and
                                                  Daddy
with a thin red heart
between