Anam Cara

PLACENTA

For Máire Bheag

It grew between you

Naturally.

This wise wall

That took everything

From you

He needed.

Grew varicose,

To carry through

The seepage of calcium.

Holding rhythm,

Offering time,

To structure and settle

The white scribble

Until it finds

The stillness

And strength

Of bone.

Fed the beat

Of your pulse

Through the dark,

A first music,

To steady the quiver

That would become

His heart.

Sieved from the stream

Of your breathing,

The breath of trees,

Fragrance of flowers,

The heavy scent of woman,

Chorus of seas,

Ripples of the ancestral,

And the strange taste

Of a shadow-father,

When you kissed.

Feels towards the end

The temper of flow change

And absorbs the white stream

To urge the child free.

On your own,

Now,

Growing away

From each other.

Nothing

Between you

But the distance

That will remain

Alive

With invisible tissue.