delga | { Siân Hughes: The Send-Off. }

The Send-Off
by Siân Hughes

Mummy has to go now. Sorry we were late.
I brought you a flower. No, it’s dead.

When you cut them, you see, they die.
The petals were white when I left.

I was sewing your name tags.
This is your name. I know it’s no use to you now.

Home clothes are not allowed. It’s the rules.
Your shawl is taped to your parcel.

Don’t be afraid. You are not alone,
and no one has a bed with a window.

The man with the spade brings you in
from the rain. The one in black says words.

In a few weeks they’ll come back
and let in more new friends.

The view changes each time. The sky,
believe me, is not always this cold.

When I was a little girl like you
I liked to look through the banisters

and see who was calling so late.
My parents in their fancy clothes

might turn and say “Who’s out of bed?”
The visitors blew kisses. Sometimes

they saved me something special
that the grown-ups had to eat.

My darling, sleep well in your bed.
Don’t come out on the landing where it’s cold

because, you see, I won’t come home
in my long dress and necklace

and blow you kisses up the stairs.
I won’t carry you back to bed

to rub your blue feet better
or fetch blankets from the box.

No, you don’t need a bottle, cuddle,
special rabbit, teddy, bit of cloth.

You don’t even need to close your eyes.
They were born that way, sealed shut.

You are a hard lesson to learn,
soft though you are, and transparent.

There’s a mark on your forehead –
the simple flaw that separates
the living from the dead.

It looks like I dropped you downstairs.
I didn’t. I promise. It was like this:

somebody did some counting
and when they added you up

they found one part of you didn’t match.
It’s supposed to come out even.

They call it trisomy twenty-one.
It’s not such a lucky number.

No, I know it doesn’t begin to explain
your lack of Christmas presents

or the colour of your skin. I know
the best smiles in the world come out uneven.

Siân Hughes won the 2006 Arvon International Poetry Competition with this poem.