Captured

• Emily Webb-smith, Grade 9
• Poetry
• 2006

When you lay down under our midnight sky
on the cold bitumen we journey daily
to quietly face your death,
the night air swooned and left us with the price of belonging to you.


The daylight brought hours measured in drug induced sobs,
distancing the news,
news so shocking
it danced its way through a tiny town that hugs the sea.


Friends mirroring disbelief formed circles of warmth,
never leaving us alone long enough
to capture the pain
that stood patiently outside in the tree curling wind.


Cold coffee cups and hushed whispers
shuffled in to replace our home,
filling an empty house
with painted smiles and silence smirking in every seat.


Soon I was smeared amongst relatives with clumsy gestures,
drifting to makeshift couches,
drawn into small town gossip,
dreaming of a mother who walked away from life.


The night that captured you now traps me with your regret.


I invent voices for the silent cry of a mother
who washed her dreams away with the sheets,
who ironed passion away with the school uniforms,
who folded love away with the tea towels.


Silence slips between the sheets and numbs the child in me
allowing a young woman with your vision to rise,
rich in determination
to weave straws of indulgence into the tapestry of motherhood.