Love
I hadn’t met his kind before.
His misericord face – really,
like a joke on his father – blurred
as if from years of polish;
his hands like curled dry leaves;
the profligate heat he gave
out, gave out, his shallow,
careful breaths: I thought
his filaments would blow,
I thought he was an emperor,
dying on silk cushions.
I didn’t know how to keep
him wrapped, I didn’t know
how to give him suck, I had
no idea about him. At night
I tried to remember the feel
of his head on my neck, the skull
small as a cat’s, the soft spot
hot as a smelted coin,
and the hair, the down, fine
as the innermost, vellum layer
of some rare snowcreature’s
aureole of fur, if you could meet
such a beast, if you could
get so near. I started there.
About this poem
This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2004. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor in 2004 was Hamish Whyte.
Editor's comment:
Lovely poem about the mother's puzzling encounter with her baby, this alien. I like the repetition of 'gave out' to mirror its breathing.
Author's note:
'Love' comes from my book-length sequence of poems Newborn, which is about motherhood. The poems were written at different times during my son's first three years, and this is one of the last, written when I was remembering the chaotic first days with a baby rather than actually experiencing them.
New mothers are expected to 'bond' with their babies instantly: I found the process slower and stranger, and this is the record. 'Misericord' is the only odd word here, I think, – they're those grotesque little figures with caricatured faces carved under the seats of choir-stalls. The title may seem rather bold and bald, but this isn't a conventional romantic poem. And after all, love is what it's all about.
