The ones I love

We ve just been looking at a picture book

About a little boy and his pet dragon

I feel the sadness I never felt as a boy

When the boy out grows the magic realm

The dragon befriends a little girl accompanied by her father

A happy ending in a way as the world keeps turning

Daddy where's your mummy?
An innocent question

From a small boy
Where's your mummy daddy?
Where’s your mummy daddy?

At first my lips are stunned to silence  

Then I say what was said to me like some deep autonomic reflex

“Your Nana is in heaven”

 It breaks my heart to say

Yet I ve said it before

Looking at the mantelpiece

In an absence had I thought I d tamed

Or acknowledging all the family

In our nightly ritual as I put you to bed

You son healed me

stood  alone in the living room Christmas holding you newly born

Knowing then you would only ever be a story to him

Like the stories of her mother my grandma told to me

I cradled my son

I wished that you were with us

But this is not the dragon’s realm

Where are you?

The unresolved hurt

Is buried in a hug to hide the tears