Tess
Davies

Poem: Mutual Understanding

Wonder

On the bright thread of time
 I am nobody’s child
 On the bright thread of time
 I am not your mother
 But some kind of kindred spirit
 With the power of a larger body

We look in the ‘Encyclopaedia of the Human Body’
A serious hardback
 At the heart in red pumping cross section
“In here?”, she pounds her chest with a plump fist
“Yes,” I nod, her eyes, clear and round, gaze into mine
“In here. Yes”, she nods
 and runs round the room to hear her heartbeat
 but can’t tune inside
 She is all in the moment
 On to the next thing
 How babies are made
 On the bright thread of time.

A child's wonder at discovering she has a real heart in her body