When my mother died

[cybermule]

When your second parent dies, you've already done this.
It's a pattern already written, knitted. It's your own.
Yet you still wander lost without a rope.
An oversized orphan of three dozen years.
It's a dozen years gone, and still I fall.

My own child paused my fall. Grabbed the rope of my heartstrings.
Are you my mummy? Tiny Whovian jabs my heart.
She chains me to this world, this downward vacuum.
Freefalling, I bump and jolt and gasp for air.
Her stubborn chin. That's mum. That's me. It HURTS!

A friend stills me, gives me my breath back. Fellow orphan.
And today I ground, humid, Radio 4 on headphones.
I've landed where this has just become real.
Real to everyone. Not just my pain alone.
My feet grazing something I can call home.