The Inkeeper’s Wife
by and published in Edition Eight of Pomegranate
after Carol Ann Duffy
My child, years after time had itched its skin over the wound of you
they came. Young. Desperate. Head-over-heels.
Her rounded belly, the kicking almost-life within.
We were full. The original no-room-at-the-inn.
Not a single space; up-to-the-brim…
But what could we do? Turn them away,
let the daylight droop out of time
at their backs? No – even the donkey
could barely make it to the stable
to sink into the scritching hay.
Sweetheart, everyone knows this story
but you; it was hardly the ideal birthing suite
but we managed, we muddled through. When they saw
the way his motherÕs eyes were ardent, scooping him in,
the travelling wise men thought he must be God,
but darling, who cares for prophecies – we could have played join-the-dots
in the stars, renamed the constellations, let
their stories weave themselves like reeds
about your sleeping chest.
No. I remember – watching the shrivelled stars through the roof
we never quite got round to fixing,
with the shuffling oxen, silent, sidelined.
Rachel Rowan-Olive
Rachel Rowan-Olive is easily amused by words, and is consequently studying for AS levels in too many languages at St Albans High School for Girls. She was a commended Foyle Young Poet in 2008 and won the Amnesty International poetry competition You Can’t Jail Minds with a poem written on mirrors.