Like a spell, she breathes life into me.

 

Seven, legs basking in the summer glow

You’re in the finally on the deckchair,

The one sat in the shed collecting dust

I watch you enchanted.

 

Eleven, bringing me a warm honey lemon potion,

we fuss about trifling issues. How dare I speak in that tone?

I burned the cookies I insisted on making independently,

So, you helped clear up anyways.

 

Fifteen, silent tears slimmed down your beaming face

I watched you fold and fold yourself over and over for your pain-laced marriage.

Diligently, I took my vitamins,

And slept with you for the last time.

 

Eighteen, we embrace after months of absence,

Beaming like sorcery. As if you weren’t hiding distraught results from the doctors.

You’re suddenly frail and I am no longer charmed by your food,

sipped like a bottomless champagne.

 

Twenty-one, pain strikes me with a bronze statue

Salt in a healing scar.

Driving to the hospital frantically, you a humble passenger.

I am growing and my mother is shrinking.

Glancing at your now unfamiliar face,

 

you suddenly feel like a deckchair in the sunshine,

and I am mystified by your beauty again.