Your downy head rests in my palm,
Tiny hands curled on my chest
And pressed to me impresses
How it’s here we’re most at rest.
Holding you close, keeping you safe –
Where we know you belong
A body kiss, tucked in tight
We’ve learned each other’s song.
Chest to chest and heart to heart
A beating symbiosis
Skin to skin and breath to breath –
Love’s underived osmosis.
For as I marvel at your makeup,
Inhale your sweet head smell
Trace your ear and count your toes,
The oxytocin swells.
The rush is heavy, heady,
Constricting in my throat –
And wrapping you still wraps us both
In devotion, need and hope.
We’re tied together you and I,
The material immaterial –
Because that perfect closeness
Bonds strong, sure, pure, ethereal.
“You’ll spoil that baby, put her down”,
They said, I heard, I hear.
But I know deep down it’s me that’s spoilt,
That much to me is clear.
It’s hard to find the words – explain –
For they can’t know like us,
The calm, the peace, the rightness,
That can soothe all woes and fuss.
The jig, the sway, the miles we’ve walked
All strapped up together.
The colds, the teeth, the reflux
That carrying’s helped us weather.
Dark thoughts and doubts don’t reach me –
I’m whole again, less torn
When you are with me bound and sound,
Less worn-out when you’re worn.
For wearing you it centres me –
An anchor in my storm,
And with you, I am better
Less flawed, restored; reborn.
I’ve worn you like I’d wear a cape
You are my super power –
And with you I have blossomed,
A mum come into flower.
And now you’re big you don’t require
The comfort of our sling
But it helped us connect, reflect,
And it helped us both to win.
I miss you early, on these last ‘ups’,
Storing up your imprint,
But I’m so glad I carried you
And listened to that instinct.
Carrying you, carried me,
Through dark hours night and day
And holding you it held me, too
In a place I want to stay –
To a me lost on the way.
