David is the Chair of the Kent & Sussex Poetry Society. This poem was selected by our external judge for publishing in our 2020 anthology, Folio #74
Birthday Blues Not a moment, but an aeon of pain, surging from beneath, lurching from within. We cry in tandem as you burst forth, surfing the tide of my blackened blood. You are searching for your own first breath, you are the beauty I will love to death. This is our first and final parting, the start of separation and end of cohesion. Now you are gone from my bloated body, no longer my bones and blood but your own. Your naked fragility fuels my anxiety, I weep for every future failure you will face. After birth, there is only motherhood: not a moment, but an aeon of pain.
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