The 18th of November, a poem for Francis

Frances Eloise Rodger

You wrap the baby blackbird in a tea-cloth. Put the shoebox not-too-close to the fre. You are eleven years old and this creature is now yours to keep safe. This is a nestling, maybe. Tiny, featherless thing. Someone is going to tell you, years later, that you should've let it be. Its mother would’ve been watching. But you couldn’t see a nest – and you didn’t know any better.

In the morning, you come downstairs, slipperless, hair damp with cold. And the stillness of the bird, the aching quietness, will make you stomach-sick. You’re really really sorry.

You will confess this to no-one.

Without even meaning to, you have done a very terrible thing. Bury her in the garden. You worry you didn’t dig deep enough.

That the neighbour has dogs.

Then again, there are so many dead things just beneath your feet. That night, spiders will follow you in fours and it will probably be a punishment. And, you won't have anywhere to put the queasy paradoxes of existence. You don’t even know what that means. Little wings and childish hope and having just very bad luck.

That is the easiest thing about growing up. Here, things are swipeable, sortable, no-strings-attached. Here, there are various compartments and don’t-do’s and medical names for that. The barefoot tenderness of dimly lit life. Fumbling for what feels right and true in the dark. Love that swallows you whole, swells up around your ankles. Guilt that crawls into your gums, fzzes in your teeth.

You don’t have to do that anymore. Get dirt beneath your fngernails.

This story is simple.

We met and we were friends.

We wandered around the city at dusk.

We sat on benches Until the night met our feet.

Six months later, I went outside In a strange place South-East of our home.

I begged to fnd you in the afterlight.

How can I tell you what I cannot understand? That this is love, And all I’ll ever know of love, And all I’ll ever need and want and more.