Different Water

When a girl becomes a mother there is no fanfare.

No government re-elections, no erupting volcanoes.

The baby mops up the praise. But quietly

there are earthquakes, realigning planets.

When you ask to hold her newborn you are

addressing someone who just became a tiger,

so be careful. When she soothes the child that has

shrieked for three hours she is the Matador,

sunlit with relief. Sometimes, at around 2 am,

she is the only woman ever to have given birth.

At the supermarket she is a calm strong oak

dragging a thrashing child past the strawberries.

At the school gates she’s autumn weeping leaves

of every hue for the loss of summer. Often

she spies the girl she once was and thinks, wimp.

Like grass trees after fire, like crops in new weather,

like a river clasping different water, there is

no fanfare when a girl becomes a mother.