Held, with love

Held, with love


I’m wearing my strapless dress today

The one you bought me as a skirt,

Free from the self-constraints of bras 

And the uniformity of past Seasons,

Free from the Motherly idylls

Imposed on me by a world of others,

Free from the servitude 

To ‘you should be this’

And ‘you should be that'.


It's September 

And a cheer-up of long-tailed tits fly overhead,

Pausing awhile to converse

Amongst the branches above me;

Amongst the heady scent

Of the fragrant-flowering hedge I cut back yesterday,

Freeing the footpath for primary-schoolers and prams,

In the magenta hareem trousers

That you bought me.


My sky-blue painted fence 

Reflects the Autumn sunshine

Back onto my unmasked face.

Here I rest, 

Waiting for a sign, a look of love;

To be noticed for the me

That resides here free -

Yet longing to be held.


A robin alights from the hanging tray

Of our bird feeder,

He too is free yet seeking nourishment.

I sit here, calm in the reassurance  

Of knowing, 

That the hand that wishes to feed them, 

Is that self-same hand

Which comes to rest in mine.


A Wensley

28.09.2025

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