The T and the S
When I was in Word Heaven, the alphabet asked me to guess,
what was it that I wished to become and I said, the letter S.
So down I came and was wrote out by a slim and Godlike hand
and I lay there quivering and still in a paperless dry land.
But soon I knew something was wrong for my friends, both G and V,
said I was out, I’m one along, I was born the letter T!
So I was entered as an even when my heart knew I was an odd
and where I wanted a simple curve I had a little rod!
This wasn’t right, it cannot be, I’m ugly, straight and crude,
I want to be a flowing shape, as sculptured as a nude.
I found a mirror of my choice and painted up my typeface
but I never could erase my shape and a T must not wear lace.
An S, a T, a cross, a dot, so confused, I cried a lot.
I twisted myself into that S, over the years, never to rest.
I was read by those who saw me wrong and I bellowed “Leave me be.
I should have been the letter S” I said “Not the letter T”
I noticed how the S was curved and buckled myself in blame,
then one day, on an old inkjet, I found someone the same.
M was a friend and worse than me for I was one letter away,
M set his sights to be an F “No way” I had to say.
But Z spoke up, a wise old letter, and B and D joined too.
They said, the form or shape don’t matter, you have a voice, you’re you.
It doesn’t matter how you look, don’t bend yourself into a book,
just be yourself, stay clear of blame, and credit yourself because you came.
All rights reserved.
Molly Cutpurse 2009
The unborn
It should have wept at my funeral
It could have been anything it liked
It may have made me a grandmother
It may have been pale or rosy or dark,
comfortable and perhaps sang like a bird.
Or maybe serious and childless
with a passion for cats,
I wonder what grace it might have developed?
Scars, broken bones, broken hearts.
Would it had swum, rode a bike, took exams
Been beautiful or manly?
How can I speak of a life never born
expectant, important and sad?
My one small child, never delivered, never made.
I've so many questions for you.
I don't understand why I think of it all the time.
Probably for I have no family.
It came and grew to an inch before lost,
I was never to know its fancies.
I see it each day, on a street, in a face.
made real by a baby which grew,
and didn't suffer the fate it had
of being washed down a loo.
The mystery is you tried to be here.
Your absence made me feel like death.
Snatched away in an accident,
through a feeling I will never understand.
You had no name at the time and still have none now,
or sex or hair or eyes,
yet you were as human to me
as your mother was.
By now, you should have been eighteen years old,
Scoffing and maybe ashamed of your parent.
But I would have kept a warm bedroom for you,
Washed your clothes and fed your cat.
I'd carry your photo in my purse.
And these words would not be written,
The day you fell away from me,
The day I died a little.