{"id":495,"date":"2025-06-03T14:27:07","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T14:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.openbook.org.uk\/chainlink\/?p=495"},"modified":"2025-06-03T14:27:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T14:27:07","slug":"maria-taylor-three-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.openbook.org.uk\/NLR\/2025\/06\/03\/maria-taylor-three-poems\/","title":{"rendered":"Maria Taylor – Three Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My Parents\u2019 Wedding, July 1975<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A rushed wedding, a year after the fighting.
Newlywed Anna unable to finish her breakfast
at the hotel. Dimitri insists she drinks up
her scalding tea or they\u2019ll miss the train.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At St. Pancras, Anna sees the 9:40 pull in.
She can still run away. Dimitri who wanted
to leave in a hurry, grieves an umbrella
he forgot at the breakfast table. Oh, it was
the best umbrella I ever had, he\u2019d always say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A train heaves along the spine of England.
Two people. A missing umbrella. My question
ringing through years \u2013 but what happened in \u201874?
Their wedding photo on flock wallpaper.
The fading of it. Anna unsmiling at the lens.
A bouquet of white flowers \u2013 her silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2003
In Praise<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my hand, spring and barrel. Arteries of ink.
I\u2019ve lost you so many times. I\u2019ve needed you,
and yet it\u2019s nothing. Another one of you appears,
to be zipped up. Doodled with. Ignored.
I\u2019ve gnawed into you, leaving tooth marks,
as you leave yours on blank pages \u2013 on the lines,
between the lines or erased with white-wash \u2013
hopeless love letters, diary entries, lists of to do
and not to do, to buy, to cross-out, to interrogate.
For such a simple thing you overwhelm me \u2013
there\u2019s so much of a person to throw away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2003
\u2018Oh! Look! There\u2019s two in there\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I lie with the curve of my belly exposed
and a secret within \u2013 it won\u2019t be one but two.
When I find out I don\u2019t hear a fanfare
but a sonographer\u2019s voice lifts then glides
into a surprised melisma of \u2018Oh.\u2019 A simple \u2018Oh\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

as life doubles. In the hospital caf\u00e9 I take tea
with two sugars, a sweetness cure for shock.
I eat two helpings of St. Clement\u2019s cake,
everything I say tastes of oranges and lemons.
Dear Lord, am I cut out for this? I pray to a spoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We go through names. I eat pickles with chocolate.
On the day of arrival, I\u2019m stoned on pethidine.
Amy Winehouse sings for two on hospital radio
as we hold our bated breath for theirs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So small, early. Two lives to love, to fear for.
Two cots. Two car seats. Two howls to feed
in the ghost hours of night. The same questions
from strangers. Are they natural? Do you sleep?
How do you do it? As if it\u2019s easy to answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maria Taylor<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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