So Seldom (Poetry)

It was more than the rare luxury
of staying warm in bed
while the other kids trooped schoolwards
past our front gate
I could hear their shouts ringing
through the cold — bouncing
off the regimented brick
their bodies bundled up against
the north-east bite —
wind’s unwelcome guest hogging
the well-gnawed air
while in a hot water bottle drowse
I nursed the cough that was
my passport to a wheezy bronchial state
of isolation.

Close by the tall brown bottle
stood on guard — a trusted linctus
and its companion plastic spoon
that measured syrup cool and oily dark
its flavour earthy —
somehow it defied
a more exact description
I thought of it as a kind
of witches’ brew — a part-magic
winter potion
that lulled and soothed away
the edge of rawness — the tightness
lacing up my chest relaxed
a slow letting-go
until I hovered, grateful
half in half out of sleep.

Somewhere a long way off
the hoover droned
as my mother went about
her set routine and inbetween
those bursts of motor noise
a snatch of music from the kitchen
radio drifted down the hall
and up the stairs — it blended
into one — accompanied
the rattle as I breathed
each shallow inch of oxygen
my room a grey-filled arctic box
with ice across its window
frosted in.

Propped high up on
a feather-pillowed hill
my old-fashioned eiderdown
lumped round the water bottle
as it cooled its rubber skin
I thought about thumping on the floor
to ask her for a drink —
my throat aching dry and sore
head full of throbbing
yet I knew that she would likely moan
and say that she had more to do
than ‘waiting on me hand and foot...’
so I held off any summoning
until she came upstairs
to use the bathroom — then
I called out — a feeble croak
that hurt — ripped through
the whole of my body.

I heard the flush and then the door
pushed open — she stood
by my bed impatient
with my fish-mouthing
as I gathered strength to talk —
struggling with clotted vocal chords
’til at last I got my neediness across —
she merely nodded and
went out again.

She brought me soup on a tray
for lunch — and bread
with no crusts to make
it easier to swallow
but I couldn’t eat it all
although I knew she hated waste —
remembered rationing too well
I expected she’d be cross with me
but she said it didn’t matter —
the birds would be glad of it
and I imagined starving sparrows
queuing on our lawn.

The day blended into
fevered dreams awash
and floating — all the minutes
ran hot and cold
into one another
and once I woke to find her
bending over me — her face
brow-wrinkled close
fingers stroking back my hair
and testing my flushed cheek
I think I moaned
something I can’t recall
but the unusual gentleness
made the day’s long shadow
seem worthwhile for
looking back on childhood years
that moment holds a glow because
she touched me
so seldom.