'Mother/ Mother' by Kerry Byrne

You watch sleep steal her from afternoon suns/ the couch-curve of her/ childlike/ and adrift, you row across the sea of summers/ in a torn-up boat under willow/ your back to boredom/ the still shape of her. A wreck of weeping hides the sky/ but you map your course/ like an astrologer/ her freckles a scree of stars/ you trace with felt-tipped fingers/ forever lost/ in the absence of her presence. When you bleed/ you navigate manboys and booze/ your boat sinking fast/ and diluted, you start the straight walk of road and river/ to the sticks and spires and sky beyond/ not looking back/ until couch-curved/ you catch the names of constellations in your dreams/ the breath of hope on your cheek.

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Kerry Byrne lives and writes in the Cambridgeshire Fens, with a backdrop of sky-filled water and endless horizon. Her writing has been published by Ellipsis Zine, Lucy Writers, Pidgeonholes, streetcake magazine and Bandit Fiction, among others.