A LIFE

For my daughter Toyah, 14.06.89 - 28.06.89.
In memoriam, with all my love...


This hurt has lingered so long,
re-intensifying with each new day.
The rising of the sun a stark reminder
of what should have been...


The team forms a semi-circle around the bed.
The Paediatrician's smile is jarring, inappropriate
as he tells me she has a mere fifty/fifty chance
of survival.
Am I alone with such agony?
I cannot read
their faces of stone.

The door - I want to run,
to escape harrowing reality,
to throw myself under a train.
The pain is debilitating:
twelve long hours,
all labour long...
then she's carved by a surgeon's scalpel.
Then deep coma...


Two long weeks pass
while I search her face
for signs of life.
But there is nothing:
no movement, no sound
to cling to,
only a ghastly silence.

My precious first-born,
limp like a rag doll.
Beloved dust
slipping through my fingers,
turning to rust.

No time for bonding,
for tender caresses
nor words of love.
In fact, no time for anything.
Just a tiny white coffin
slipping into eternity...


Here in the darkness,
endlessly yearning for the light.
But it never comes - only
another morning and birdsong:
that bittersweet serenade
to a broken heart
and the end of motherhood.