Heidi North: The Child I Am Losing

Heidi North: The Child I Am Losing
erik-witsoe-366860-unsplash.jpg

Little Bud

Cornflakes

The morning nurse adjusts my bed

smoothing and smothering as if I’m a child

bursts the metal skin sealing the milk carton

slides her finger along the sharp edge

folds the danger under with a practiced hand

pours milk lavish on the cornflakes

spoons in the soft plop of peaches

places beside me strong tea with too much sugar

and waits for me to eat as if I am the child here

and it’s not about the child I am losing

 

In this ward

The nurses touch

more than usual pat pat

their sanitised finger bones

reach into the dark corridor

grip my elbow against the assault

of carpet and light

hover behind the unlocked bathroom door

lunge into my disposable underwear

and check the pad. In the bruised morning

they keep the cheap red curtains drawn

 

It’s been a week

When the nurse calls to confirm

it was pregnancy tissue they extracted and secreted

folding the sheet over discrete

I’m buckled over in the car again

with the windscreen wipers swiping

tears because I signed you away to the fire –

I just didn’t know how to bring you home –

When she says, We sighted the pregnancy sac

regret sucks the last of my strength,

Your tiny budded body curled and lost and gone

 

 

This insanity never ends

beside the grave

of cigarette butts

 

and discarded coffee grinds

I hold you

 

bone to bone

the emptiness transforms

 

passion blurs our edges

and then

 

we are here again

in this violet twilight world

 

you open the frozen window

invite the sharp night in

 

Devon St Songs

 

1 Late summer

We ignored all the signs,

the crumpled house captured us

 

despite the 87-year-old carpet layer

wheezing down the crocked steps

 

the landlord in purple velvet after him, studded stilettos

stage-whispering, I worry he might have a heart attack

 

The tangle of dead trees sprawled

over the place a lawn could be

 

not neglectful, but endearing

a wildness in the city

 

the fig tree balding in late summer –

bottom layer green and holding on tight.

 

2 Autumn

There were three red apples

on the tree for weeks

 

and only today did he brave

the undercurrent of weeds

 

 

to find steady ground

to stand on to pick them.

 

They’re soft, puckered

as an old woman’s mouth

 

but we still love each other,

we cradle them – soft

 

unexpected treasures –

bring them inside to stew.

 

2 Winter

The plum tree spikes

naked against the brilliant blue

 

some kind of wide-leaved

hacked up tree trunk sends one

 

brave narrow shoot up

towards the sun

 

3 Spring

We promised each other we’d last till Spring

 

we’d survive the rain-soft

stairs, avoid the neighbours fighting above

 

clung tight in the dark chill nights

but mid-winter you put your fist

 

through the bedroom wall

and found nothing there

 

except weeds and air,

all this time nothing between

 

us and the outside world.

We never stood a chance.

 


Heidi North is a writer from Auckland, New Zealand. Her poetry and short stories have been published in New Zealand, Australia and the UK. She won an international Irish award for her poetry in 2007, and has won New Zealand awards for her short fiction. Heidi’s first poetry book Possibility of Flight was published by Makaro Press in 2015. She joined the Shanghai International Writers Programme along with ten other writers worldwide as the NZ fellow in September-October in 2016. She was award the Hachette/NZSA mentorship for 2017 to work on her first novel. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Auckland.