Her laughter
explodes into the void like
a shaken soda. “My-Daugh-ter.”
Three syllables—each one
a candy that pops on my tongue.
I know the way it feels to long
for a child that doesn’t come.
Hope dwindling with each dying
sun.
all the sweeter
She arrived in Summer, just as
we reaped the damson bush for wine.
Eyes like mine, her cry a Siren’s song.
Calling forth both strangers and kin folk
the same. The way a sunflower feels
—its face pulled unwittingly toward
the solar flame.
for the wait
How giving birth was an overflowing,
my energy rushing to meet hers. At 34
I cannot remember how it was before.
And now, sixteen years on. Her smile
is a weapon, her life a dance floor.
She sends her atoms fizzing
into the Universe.
late ripening fruit
is an emerging poet and mother of two who lives in Birmingham, England. She turned to poetry in late 2023 as an alternative creative outlet, after a progressive neurological disease rendered her unable to continue to paint. Nikki’s poetry has been published in print and online, most recently by Wingless Dreamer Publishing and the quarterly magazine The Dawntreader.
