The Price We Pay I keep men waiting as my father before me kept us waiting. my brother and I were always standing by the sidewalk on tenterhooks, our need like a big red tongue hanging out and panting for a drop of rain in drought. bills were never paid in our house. our landlord (a nice man) waited months before he told my mother the rent hadn’t been paid. we spent a whole childhood outside houses fighting in our father’s car while women served our father (such a nice man) coffee and cake. the day was drawn out as a watched kettle. we were boiling. we wanted our lives to take off, like a train with a clear destination. instead, we rearranged things round our father, believing every timehe’d turn up but finding ourselves always alone on a platform watching trains pull out without us. now I call myself feminist and make the men I live with pay. it’s taken a lifetime to learn my father’s promises are full of air and leave us steaming. and yet he’s so well-meaning. yes he’s a man who means well, he tells us all ‘leave it with me.’ we spend the rest of our lives trying not to.
The Child I Never Had The child I never had walks into the room and sits softly reading a book (like her mother). She won’t look up until dinner, cooked by somebody else (in that world, I can cook and I’m wise and wonderful). The child throws her arms around me, wrapping me warmer than the brush-cotton dressing-gowns I’ve worn since childhood. We hold each other at least a minute longer than we need to or should. And then, let go, turn back to our books and all the lives we live in them. We turn the page into our parents. My daughter stands at the door watching. But when I look up, she’s gone. And I let her go. I am a good mother. I grow older but I never grow up. Our words, like children, won’t wait for us. The Weight Of Words In Our Hands Like Water Our fingers on stone nearly touch. Our eyes meet and look away and return. We watch hundreds of boats ahead, poised for some purpose, a solitary figure standing, a shadow