The Gift; Family Day Care

The Gift

Late on Christmas Eve,

in the river, in the moonlight

you caught a fine fat trout,

brown, with rosy freckles.

I watched as you thwacked it.

Thwacked and thwacked

against a low stone wall

until it was fully dead.

Next morning was still Christmas.

We found a fireplace

where you wrapped the trout

in a parcel of tinselly foil

and cooked it with tender care.

You eased a blade along the spine

and fed me soft pink flesh

which I ate, slowly, thinking of the night before.

Family Day Care

Look at my pyjamas,

abandoned for the day

with their kindly carers,

our two reliable pillows

who sit, plump and motherly,

one on each side of the pair of them.

Like twins, the top and bottom

cling together: for reassurance.

Their pink rose eyes watch out,

waiting to see me come in from work

and smother them with love again.

I stay with them until they go to sleep.

Suzanne Edgar