Katherine Henderson

 

Mother

 

First we laced the women up,

then made a corset for the earth.

Seamstresses pricked holes in skin and pores.

It is only the surface.

It is not a deep hurt.

It will not kill you, will it, Mother,

reconfiguring your organs?

 

 

 

Too Much Too Young

 

We, she said

in her voice,

want to know how things are,

how it feels to be under a man,

dosed on what you didn’t know

not at my age,

not til now,

not even now.

 

But we never asked for permission.

But we never asked for it, either.

 

 

 

Young

 

(inspired by Tony Harrison’s Long distance I, II)

 

He cried in the strange luxury of the long black car and

just then, he wasn’t Dad anymore

but son. Not man, boy.

And under the grey, young.

 

I cried more for the future than the passing,

knowing I’d be there,

journeying to journey’s end

with him one car in front.