Babysitting

You have practised your flute
your audition piece for Oliver,
made the milky drinks and
sorted the vitamins

kept quiet whilst I helped
your sister with her reading -
undressed, washed and
brushed your teeth

when out of the blue you ask
me to read you a story
You - who can read as well as me -
settle on my lap just like the old days

We laugh through an old
childish story - I kiss you
goodnight and settle downstairs
for TV sofa-bliss -

then an hour later I hear
your dancer's feet
softly pat-pat down the stairs
I know it's you, it's always you

`Granny, I can't get to sleep' -
a pause, whilst I rummage through a
valium-fogged brain,
enduring its own crisis -

for ideas, words, a painterly image.
Imagine, I say, a beautiful
beach in the sun - with smooth
blue sea and a cloudless sky -

`All right', you reply and you're
back up to bed.
Quiet, the beauty of quiet.
You believed me, believed my
fumbled imagery.

It won't always be so, I know,
but until then you have given me
just one more grandma moment
to cherish