Six years on but still, sometimes,

I wake and find you in the dawn,

the woman

from the mother-and-baby group,

pushing the swing, still there,

in that playground –

do you remember?

both of us in the park:

your older daughter is

straddled into the safety swing,

her legs flying up

towards the sun

as she leaves you and comes back,

leaves you, and comes back

and I am

with you,

the wind insisting itself

into everything,

the row of boats along the foreshore

with their metalwork

ringing,

crying out,

my own baby snug

in the hull of her pram,

and her small,

reliable, heart

working,

winging in its chest

so that when I gull myself next to you

– squawking too noisily

about motherhood –

I almost

miss

your daughter’s eyes,

locked onto you,

airborne tight,

as she reluctantly leaves you,

and leaves you,

a series of

small griefs,

her swoop,

her snag of delight,

each time caught uncertainly

in that belly-drop moment

between soaring joy

and parting.

I was too slow to notice

you were a cracked egg,

albumen

leaking out of you,

the way you forced yourself

to push the swing away,

willed your muscles to obey,

each push a wrench of the heart.

I presumed you had simply left your baby boy with your mother.

But of course,

there are your daughter’s eyes,

fixed on you

as you slowly implode – you,

with your heart

strung up on a pendulum –

transfixed,

watching you

caught in that terrible

moment between:

oscillating, flying away,

hands outstretched

for the miraculous return.