The twenty-sixth poem from my poetry collection Conception.

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Rings

I s’pose it started with two wedding rings,
whose I’m not sure.
Mine and his? Some couple’s
a hundred years ago or more?
The continuous coming together of two parts
which later become one,
then another…

I should have had a ring of fire,
or so they say.
The only ring I got
was the reflective rim
round the operating table.

Your great-nanny knitted a blanket of rings
chained together into a net to catch your warmth,
while your lips were a ring on my shoulder
as you tilted your head and arched your back
like a rod to fish for a burp.

The golden ring of your halo never lost its curves
even as you grew and learned to stick
Hula Hoop rings on your toddler fingers
while grabbing great fistfuls of pink coconut rings
and claiming more pirates’ plunder
from other children’s plates.

I should have known then what I know now:
that you were already running rings round me.
And, as I shout, hands on my hips,
or fidgeting my wedding band with frustration,
I remember my mother,
standing, shouting at me to stop,
as she frantically played with the gold ring on her finger,
twisting it round and round and round.