ROSIE

Moira's first published poem, in 1985

She came from her mother
easily, without the pain
that Emma brought. She came
with a smile for the world,
'Too good to be true,'
the father said, marvelling.

She suckled intuitively,
milky as a piglet, eyes
meandering. Her mother's face
dissolved into a globe
of nourishment. Cherishing her,
they called her Rosie Jane.

'Not half the trouble
Emma was,' they said.
She slept deeply, snug
as a hot water bottle,
all night long. Her days
were placid, undemanding.

'Such a happy baby' -yet
they worried. She didn't cry.
'Not quite perfect,' doctors said.
Trusting, not comprehending tears,
Rosie laughed, a bruised plum
in the bottom of the basket.