For her, home was
A syruped thickly of honey
And that newlywedded sunhumming glow.
The soju that sat oodled in pools in rings in spoken
Atop the verot-black, back verot black bench,
Their percussion of food and drink
In drunken love with the sound of each others voice and laugh
And when pregnancy test showed double dash
It was indulgence
Never ailed with the early morning nauseous twists women disliked;
Bloom cheeked peaches
Under a drippy sugar sky
The happy feel good – pulsing and humming her veins;
But the birth told her no.
No, it changed her
That epidural curdled, hurt her
A blunt numbed push spoke her into lulls of deep sedation
Edged her further from four walls and fireplace,
Further into the mind – thick with graffiti and snakey tangled spit
She is sat as sickle over tea
With son purring in cotton clean clothed coil
In the hairline crack between wake and rest
The sky above hissed down with showers
The door clicked unlocked, brushed open.
And for the first time, the dining table was scalped bare
The air stayed stale flat and greyed
Wading in stagnation
The rot ate and spat and giggled back sick
While varicose veins vined winding up her thigh
Face me, love
And for a moment she did,
He saw her again
Saw her, wife, woman
Brown deep eyes wise wild wonder
But the glassy glaze stared back thick