How my flesh is split by it still! —
that giving birth to the self that isn't self,
but is so part of it that when she falls
I bruise.

Now the telephone's umbilical line
is all that connects us;  travelling
sound across oceans like
whale music;

a mournful echo magnifying separation.
`I'm fine,'  I tell her.  `Everything's fine.'
Practising to protect each other
we deny.

Her familiar image laughs from a shelf.
But this child-woman is a stranger — so fragile
I'm afraid.  Even her voice terrifies
by omission.

I watch them in trains, cafes,
waiting rooms — mothers and daughters
locked in the terrible chemistry of relationship
and wonder

why no one warns you that the small terrorist
tumbling inside its amniotic sac
will hold your whole life
hostage.
 

© Kathleen Jones