Shopping with kids

Ayesha always went shopping on Sunday afternoons,

both kids in the back. Let’s get this over quick as we can.

She hates driving but needs to put things in the boot.

Why does everything have to be so heavy?

We broke up two years ago. It was never going to last

although sometimes late at night I thought

‘what if we change how we feel about everything?’

But that’s not how to do things and her two sons

were used to not getting attached. I feel bad I wasn’t the one

who stuck around but once Ayesha has made her mind up,

that’s how things will be done. I guess there’s someone else now

for the kids to not get used to. I fell in love with all three of them.

Sometimes I wake up in the night so desperate for commitment

let me sit in dentist waiting rooms, one either side of me,

both of them screaming and I have to bollock them

in the car on the way home and then immediately apologise.

Explain it’s been a hard day and I always hated the dentists too.

Let me take them to the supermarket on Sundays

and get them treats and say ‘don’t tell your mum’

and with their mouths full of Flumps they know this is a good time

to be obedient and while we’re out I know I can take my time

because Ayesha will never get bored that now she can enjoy

these Sunday afternoons all on her own, no kids,

both feet in the footspa her boys bought her for Mother’s Day

and she will snooze and stretch and read and think ‘peace.’

Sometimes I think about going there on a Sunday afternoon;

the big Asda  on Boundary Road, hoping I’ll bump into her,

dressed in her ‘I’m going to the supermarket’ jeans and jumper

And she won’t know what to say to me but I’ve never known

what to say to Ayesha ‘you’re so beautiful and perfect’ seems

as obvious and redundant as ‘we’re both in a supermarket,’

and I’d look at all the things in her trolley.