Thalidomide II / What if Rosie Moriarty-Symons met Sylvia Plath by chance down Cardiff High Street
- Jilly O’Brien

Pebble
in a pram

I am my young mother’s treasure
pocketed –

carried carefully home.
Peeling back

satin edged waffle blankets
freezes the smile

off the passer by
as we wheel by. Baby joy

spills over the ground
more a salt lick

than a willow tree
That’s me, infant manatee

finning through liquid love
Coming up for air

bubbling laughter
through a copper still

I carry
a message in that bottle

I hope. You
yearn to be graded 

on genius,
not madness  

Yet you wince,
spider

Blanch like peas and bishops 
at another’s sausage casing 

The butchers window 
catching your reflection 

flinching.
My mouth 

Paintings sell  
for fistfuls of dollars

Who else kisses your page?
Who else treads

colour like a grape harvest?
Many moons swell and sliver

Since we lost
the instruction booklet

But look
We made it