Home birth
Sun seeps through
crab apple blossom
and I lie on the sofa
exhausted but complete.
She’s sleeping next to me
wrapped in her blanket.
It feels like birthdays
when I was a child
when the whole day
was entirely mine.
Newborn
The first night he was mostly mouth,
a hole of noise
to stopper, a picture book chick
beak hinged wide open.
He couldn’t get enough of me,
wanted to suck out bones,
dissolve teeth down through that O –
loose change spiralling.
And when lights dimmed
to yellow pools above each bed,
he watched me with his old blue eyes –
a new intimacy, I’d learn to lose.
(both previously unpublished)
Ali Thurm‘s poetry has been published in anthologies, on the Tate website and in magazines. Her poem ‘It only takes ten minutes’ was highly commended in the 2016 Aurora poetry competition. She is working on her second novel, Jacob’s Ladder. @AliThurm
andotherpoems.com 