We were in the canopy among the owls
amid limes and sycamores at the top
of a three storey Victorian semi.
Ours was the children’s floor and the nannies’.
We furnished, decorated, carpeted.
We had our books, our prints, our piano –
and our child quickening in your belly.
I would feel it kick. Our neighbour one floor down
ran off with an actress. His little boy
rattled his play pen all day. In the winter,
mould grew in the bathroom, the gas boiler
shed bits of metal, ships on the river
blasted their fog horns. She was born in May.
Her cot was under a skylight. Leaves
stroked the glass, sunlight dappling her loveliness.
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By David Selzer