For reasons I don't understand, I can't read my last post to this thread which featured Hannah's 'The Edinburgh Woollen Mill', but here's another anyway ...
Ante-Natal
My husband doesn't want to hold the plastic pelvis model.
He tells the other husbands that it's bound to be a doddle.
He thinks the role of classes is to teach, not mollycoddle.
He'll go so far, but not an inch beyond.
My husband is afraid of meeting women called Magenta,
Of sharing wholesome snacks `outside the Early Learning Centre,
Of any exercise that's an incontinence preventor.
He's friendly, but determined not to bond.
My husband listens to my fear, tells me to overcome it,
Changes the subject to the Davos Economic Summit,
Decides that if there's pain he'll ask a nurse to numb it.
He says he doesn't think it sounds that bad.
My husband mocks the books with their advice about nutrition,
He shocks the other couples in the coffee intermission
By saying Ziggy Marley seems in pretty good condition
Despite the smoking habits of his dad.
My husband doesn't care if I'm a leaner or a squatter,
Says pregnancy is no excuse for reading Harry Potter.
He isn't keen on Stephanie or Amos or Carlotta.
Leave it to him; he named our latest car.
On Father's Day my husband gets a card he's not expecting.
I say it's from the baby, with a little redirecting.
He doesn't blame my hormones or insist that I'm projecting.
He says he is the father of a star.
And - in somewhat subtler mode
On Westminster Bridge
I don't believe the building of a bridge
Should be an image that belongs to peace.
Raised eyebrow or the river's hardened ridge,
It wouldn't want hostilities to cease.
Aloof, on tiptoes, it deserts each side
For the high ground and, though it has to touch
Land that real lives have left undignified,
I don't believe it likes that very much.
It knows that every time we try to cross
To a new place, old grudges bind our feet.
It holds out little hope and feels no loss,
Indifferent more than neutral, when we meet
Halfway to transfer ownership of blame,
Then both of us go back the way we came.
Margaret.
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