Your shrimp toes are webbed
as you overtake your ocean
In your blue and white flip-flops
you are clapping waves
and are done like October in April

You tell me that you are anxious
to get started at ‘Queen’s’
but it is I who sits queenly in her parlour still proud
but something isn’t right I don’t know…
Something isn’t the same

Sleep will not come this night
as I wonder how you will be doing
While I pace my long corridors
my dressing gown is stained
in sour milk
as mammaries overflow–
flooding my gaping hole

You stood in the centre of my nest
and have grown with the mighty branch
You will descend from me as you did
when you were born – before I held you close
Like blushing pears ready for picking–
they drop their dear faces on straw grasses
You too will find your spot in haystacks

What highways will you take
What paths will I make

You were caught in my waterfall full
and you hugged your raincoat arms around me
Your cheeks bruised against mine as we sat empty

Go and fill those academic halls
with the other unested throng
Burst empty of me
as I break from you
who is me
but is not

Mel Sarnese