You were pulled from me in the coldest of months,
in a slow-mopped hospital they cleared your lungs:
I read you the fact, what they had written,
you being just mine, no father was given.
In that shortened week I was your only mum,
in that compress of time.. my first love began.
The day it snowed to boot-thick-deep,
I dressed you, carefully, in a pink layette;
I took you down to the hospital’s car park,
to a woman waiting, with a man in a car,
but I could not let you be removed,
there followed a struggle, I still wear the bruise;
Dad tugged you hard, out from my arms,
pushed you to the woman in that fast-revving car.
She turned to your face, as they drove away,
I felt my heart crumble, and it began to decay.
A year after your birth a photo was sent,
from an anonymous place, by your perfect parents:
Four decades passed, all my family’s gone,
I sit with your picture, I am your only one.