'My darling angel
I have a bleak and empty feeling -
not due to Alison Mary's exit either'
I smiled...
Strange to read the familiar hand
penned just four days after my birth.
Where was my father?
Why couldn't he share
this miraculous moment with her?
'I do hope you're not getting frozen my darling,
and that everything is going according to plan.'
They'd met on board ship
at the end of the war.
She was an army nurse,
nearly forty when he asked her to marry him.
'Oh Malcolm, I'm much too old for you...'
But he was persistent -
so she did.
He'd always wanted a little girl 'with dark curly hair'.
That's precisely what she gave him.
'I think the milk supply might be starting -
which I hope to goodness is alright.
I can't bear to think of starving the poor little thing.
Though no doubt someone is making up for my deficiencies.'
She ended up bottle feeding us both.
(David was born thirteen months later) .
She'd give us a little aperitif first,
then finish us off with a bottle.
'I'll stop now because it's almost lunchtime.
Bless you a million times, dear heart.
All my love and come back quickly.
Alison Cassidy
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-letter-9/
