Tenderness

Eight or nine. You rubbed my neck in the back of the taxi. This was your apology; it was late, you were drunk again. I was stiff and angry.

Five or six. I was sick in the night. You came and held my hair back, stroked my back while I retched into the toilet.

Four or five. I was huffy and petulent sulking behind your coats in the wardrobe. You slipped a note under the door, I had to come and ask you to read it: I'm sorry. All my Love, Mummy xxxxx

You singing 'Oh when the Saints, Oh When the Saints' in the morning.
Laying hands on my tragically dying hamster.
Waking me up in the night to watch the fireworks.
Your omelettes. Your porridge. Your stew and dumplings.
You making us eat liver and rainbow trout.
The ballerina on my birthday cake and me sulking again in the bathroom.
You feeding the local strays.
Soothing me with calamine lotion.

These are tender fractures, weeping hairline cracks in the front I created.
The woman I had to become. My martyring for you.
My mothering you. Trying trying trying.
To save you from yourself.

So crack, split and shatter
break me again
And I will remember tenderness.