You and I

You, startled in your fishbowl crib,*

and I,

washed down and lain between cool sheets

after the sweat and blood of your arrival

watch each other.

Left alone,

(- we were the only ones last night

committing miracles -)

we find ourselves fixed in conspiratorial surprise,

gazing, as if,

for all that we shared

nine months swelling expectation

this was somehow not what we expected.

Most of all,

(and strange!)

we never thought

the world would now be

quite so different.

I,

transformed from isolated independence

find I am become the wellspring of the future,

tied through time and over oceans to the whole of life. 

You,

opening a space, and love and grief, where there were none,

forcing your way into the fabric of existence

have enlarged the universe

with your small, growing self,

Your dreams did not encompass change

and mine were limited to tiny hands and nappies

yet between us

we have changed the world.

  

July 92

For Michael

*In case you aren’t familiar with maternity wards , the cribs are made of transparent plastic – easy to see the baby, and easy to clean I suppose. But they really look like fishbowls!