Every bone in her is a climbing frame / he swings heavenward on her taut laughter

“I love you, Ezy”

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In the intro to Word association I spoke about the internship I did with W&S. My main project with them involved running some poetry workshops with women living in a refuge having fled domestic abuse. Myself and my fellow intern chose this project because we had been affected by the issue and cared deeply about it. I wrote this poem for a lady who lived at the refuge with her son because the way they loved each other was particularly striking to me. She cried when I read it to her but maybe that isn’t saying much because she tended to cry a lot.

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A woman looks at her son.
She tells him,
“I love you, Ezy”
She smiles at him and her teeth are the stars
wide-eyed he is blind to all the night in her.

A woman plays with her son.
She tells him,
“I love you, Ezy”
Every bone in her is a climbing frame
he swings heavenward on her taut laughter.

A woman disciplines her son.
She tells him,
“I love you, Ezy”
He fights her in flickers, but she is never at war with him
they have a greater fire to face.

A woman comforts her son.
She tells him,
“I love you, Ezy”
She wraps around him like warmth with a heartbeat
so loud the shadows hide. They have never seen a love so sharp.

A woman teaches her son.
She tells him,
“I love you, Ezy”
Joy is watching his mind ripen but she dreads harvest
when, plucked from her roots, he becomes apart.

A woman fears for her son.
She tells him,
“I love you, Ezy”
What template will be used to construct a man out of her boy?
How long will his anchor hold in the love of a woman ruptured by love?

A woman cries.
Her face crumples like a thrown away 
marriage certificate.
A collapsed climbing frame litters 
the remains of a bulldozed playground.
He clambers up to her face, wiping her tears with his nose like
he is trying to inhale her heartbroken.

A woman looks at her son.
For him she is a shapeshifter. She is malleable.
She tells him,
“I love you, Ezy”
But she does not lie like men do.