PRESSED FLOWERS

My child never sat her exams,
she didn't have time.
You can't count two weeks as a lifetime.
There were no birthday boat trips in June,
nor Christmas presents in December.
She never slept in the pink bedroom with the nursery rhyme lamp
and Disney curtains that never opened.

No terrorist atrocity has marred my life.
There's been no news coverage, no public outcry.
Fate's attacks are deviously executed, are underhand and utterly devastating.
They leave no visible scars.
It's all on the inside - the damage, the agony, the loneliness.
And for those like me there can be no full recovery.

But there was a laburnum tree weighed down with blossoms,
and speedwell blooms spread over the entire garden.
They awaited her arrival with a joyful anticipation
that even a lingering sense of foreboding failed to subdue.
I picked some of each to press for her,
pretty blues and yellows to frame in a card.
I would give it to her when she turned eighteen,
when the danger had long passed I thought,
that heavily pregnant me, who had
just purchased cot, high chair and baby clothes.
That much younger me, with heart still intact.