Days after his birth, dazed with love,

I leave the house, my baby son’s life

warm beneath my jacket.

 

He’s wearing the red hat

that took just an evening to knit. It’s too big,

that’s how small his head is.

 

He’s so young, as yet he has no name,

and I step into the path of a cyclist

careering down the hill

 

who clips my side, not hard enough

to hurt me, but hurtles

in a terrible cartwheel across the road

 

then stands to drag his buckled bike

my way, to name for me

the thing that might have happened,

 

but had not. His finger points,

his mouth prepares to shout.

Then, catching sight of the tiny child,

 

he raises the palms of his wounded hands,

and silently turns to go.

It’s taken me half my life

 

to know, another mother

had loved that man

whose name I shall never know.

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