Declaration Form

from Love & War

Was the sky, the heaven

screw-faced that day?

Did it crush crush you

to leave the child

with the ole folk to raise?

Did grass and cane and wind

quarrel your name rain fall heavy-heavy

air cling like a second skin?

Did gullies and shoreline shrink back

shape shifting

like a mother’s belly after labour?

What made you flee

the uneasy,

overcrowded

peace

for a home among strangers;

castaway among familiars

each passenger an island

re-mapping her own route?

Did your mind ever settle

like floorboards and ceilings

tightening at their seams,

or did it churn with the Atlantic

stumble about deck

haunt the dorms or dining halls?

And the two children

not yours, but in your care,

how did you deliver them

under the sky’s steely gaze;

the nun’s reproving eyes,

to long, empty arms

on Southampton Dock?

What of your own cold comfort?

You, heading even further north?