Keening For Morven

Even my tit was useless They said I had hungry milk The midwife forced your face to my swollen breast Prized your jaws apart. Prodded your cheek To kick-start you to suckle Always we were last to leave From the special nursery You, yellow with birth jaundice, me all fingers and thumbs Worried it'd get it wrong. Worried I'd pull your arms Out of their sockets, or break your new-born legs Tugging on your baby grows and vest That first night out of hospital, my dad in slippered feet Crept into the spare room; both of us were crying Mother and son overwhelmed by the battles of birth He sang us sound asleep You in his arms, me in my rumpled sheets The years dissolved- I was his child again His lullabies rocked us to slumbers deep When he died, folk said you crept into his bed Cuddled his clammy corpse, before the undertaker carted him away As if your childish heat could warm the dead! At our last supper, your eyes were starry bright You talked of writing down your life to date Its traumas, twists, from Memory's black crate ‘Three nights running now I've dreamt of him My granda, ' you remarked Later, I found you lifeless in the dark And thought of slippered feet and lullabies The way my father held you, like an Ark.