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Steven Blyth

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Snarl

Churchill called his depression his “Black Dog”


Yours is a stray that followed
Us home from the maternity ward,

Curled up on the doorstep, snuck
In on my first day back at work.

Your all-night tears -
Much worse than our new-born daughter’s -

Are its howls; your tempers its bared teeth;
Your mood swings like it tugging you on a leash.

Pills help - neat blister packs
Like blisters on its paws to slow its pace.

We read an article called Stretch Marks on the Mind,
Dread damage to “the mother/child bond.”

We can find some comfort, though -
Sifting up in her pram, now eight months old

She’ll reach out to stroke or pat
Even the most ferocious looking mutt.

And I try to think of better times to come -
When it won’t seem that pushing this pram

Is up hill all the way and done only by me.
I think of something nice and easy

Like reading her a story at some future bedtime,
My favourites tethered firmly at the back of my mind -

Those about big bad wolves.

 

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