Tuesday Poem

Mother at Ease

Fat as a roll of pork
mother is prone
cupped in canvas
and perfectly pitched to 30 degrees

She wears a wig
She is clad in black
Her jovial mourning frock
is laughing from hip to hip

That belly's a rotunda
The band's packed up, gone home
Hands splay across the roof
Fingers, soft as savs
tap to the off-beat
of a remembered saucy song

Out from the swollen folds of skirt
calf nestles up to calf
calm as lovers
after a tempest of love or hate

Small feet, moored at the ankles
have lost their mast and rigging
But see - their prows are at the ready
set to sail to different countries
somewhere east and west.


Pam M

I wrote this poem at a time when being mother was a defining role in my life. I wondered about other shapes 'motherness' might take.