Month One
The balloons are deflating,
the lasagnes eaten,
the world has stopped
gazing. I could write a thesis on sleep
but would rather stretch out on its vowels.
He grins, Mumsnet
calls it wind.
My heart is alive on my chest.
Month Three
I see different kinds of darkness
and different kinds of light
behind his eyes. Waking,
he gives himself up
as I gave myself up to the sun,
sad songs on my Walkman,
imagining love.
Month Six
His head no longer flops
when he is lifted, leviathan-like,
from his cot. Teeth torture.
The floor is a lava
of porridge, puree
and tiny parts of me.
Days fall to their knees
as he eats.
Month Nine
I leave him at nursery,
his red song following me.
Month Twelve
He wobbles over,
my heart breaking
his fall.
Sam Szanto is a Pushcart prize-nominated writer living in Durham. Her poetry pamphlet ‘This Was Your Mother’ was published by Dreich Press in 2024; ‘Splashing Pink’ by Hedgehog Press; her short-story collection ‘If No One Speaks’ by Alien Buddha Press. She won first prize in the Wirral Festival Poetry Prize, the Charroux Poetry Prize, the First Writer Poetry Prize, the Shooter Flash Prize and the Mum Life Stories Prize. She has poems in journals including ‘Rialto’, ”South Carolina Review’, ‘The North’, ‘Dust Poetry’, ‘Broken Spine’ and ‘The Storms’. She has an MA in Writing Poetry from Newcastle University and is working on a practice-led PhD about parenthood poetry at York St John.