PRESSURE

What is it tears you urgent from my bed?
The sun has not yet coloured up
a pale and washed out sky,
the moon’s still bright,
a star or two remain.
Mist hangs low above the fields
and in hedges laced with silver
the birds sit hushed and still.
My children too are sleeping,
not ready at this hour to start their day.

But you have fled.
What is it tears you urgent from my bed?

Is it the weight of love
that I have tried so hard to hide
for fear of scaring you
before you gave us time
to learn and trust and grow and share?

Or the wild and wanton depths of lust,
so warm, so wet, so fierce, so kind,
that toss us in the velvet swells of night
but cast you up at dawn?

Is it responsibility for a family not yours,
that I’ve not asked for
but you’ve taken nonetheless?

Or worries for the future,
of who we are and where we’ll be
a year – ten years - from now?

No, no, it’s none of these,
your morning flight –

- it’s just the unbearable pressure
of your ageing flesh

on your bladder.