It Is Music

The poet may not

visit her son

at his house,

because

she is

the ex-wife.

Two hours’ drive away

she has to live. No job. No money.

She must make her own arrangements.

Old family friends

offer her their daughter’s bed.

Amélie’s sleeping out tonight

and of course Kai can come

for supper.

The poet makes pizza for all.

A host of little ones

look on

the kneading, knocking down and rolling,

their questions climbing,

reaching, their declarations

sharing, all their funny voices

building

space

she’s lost,

been denied without a choice.

‘You’re not a part of the family.’

To be cast out –

there’s nothing worse

for a maternal creature.

Kai’s voice threads into the fabric

his low pitch she knows

beneath the children, and the older son,

with whom he’s playing at the screen,

and the char’s toddler Ouinene

has so much with raised eyebrows to say

and says it, incomprehensibly, gesturing firmly.

The friend, mother Ilse, sighs –

‘All this noise. I don’t know where

my thoughts begin and end.’

‘That’s what I long for,’ says the poet,

‘in the silence I have been condemned to;

although I know you’ve sometimes too much din.’

‘We don’t appreciate our blessings,’

replies Ilse, laughing, thinking.

The women’s voices run

slowly between those of their sons

and the children

and

it

is

music.

16^th May 2015

 - Silke Heiss