Birthday Girl

(By Sil, the 15th of May, 2011, London)

“But I didn’t choose to be”
A refrain to my mother
Carolled spitefully
By a whinging, raging child:
“So why did you have me?”

A mistake
Still counts as a choice
It’s a bird deaf
To the effect
Of its own trilling voice

Side-by-side
In matching holiday skirts
She said: “You’re part of me”.
Later,
Her skirt left on the beach
Flailing in the wind
Like the parachute crown
Of a born-again dandelion

The insistent,
Unbearable itch
In my chest
Grasping that she could feel whole
Without me
For attempting a climb
Would the hiker leave something
As vital as a limb behind?

Left to the comfort of thumbs:
One rubbing the velvety bottom
Of Tom-Tom
The other - a fool’s breast
To suckle on with a sore gum

Five, eighteen, twenty-five
Thirty-one
Every birthday marks
The growing jaw of separation
Between that mother and this child

And a contradiction:
I didn’t choose to be
Yet I don’t stop counting.

Heraldry

(By Sil, the 5th of May, London)

On my shield
I drew a peacock feather
A butterfly and
Woodbine leaves

When fear
Obliterates the nest of memory
When adornment
Can no longer conceal
The true state of me

I place power and knowledge
In beauty
I forgive Psyche
Her brittle wings
Pray that
My love will not injure
Those to whom it clings.

Swallow
The putrid apple of shame
But never
Become a hate recruit.

After all,
Don’t butterflies too
Feed on rotten fruit?