She thought of her breasts full-ripe.
Neither nascent nor drooping.
Bursting, urgent, hungry to feed.
Breathing life, eternal, stones
And continents, clouds in the sky,
Planets and stars, pulsars,
Gorged with erotic love, unnoticed
By many, but vibrant in her starry eyes.

See how electric I am, she said,
How perceptive the thoughts in my head.
The helpless will flock around my bones,
Hapless dark will guide me to the shore,
By miracle, mothers of the world united
In love’s abundance, when one becomes two,
The young fly off, grow in independence.
Will I love them then as I love them now,

So needy. Winter sun will pierce
The autumn of my years. Illuminating
Every truth and falsehood. Trauma
Of birth. Magic of youth. Your soul
In your DNA, pre-programmed, why,
So that you could only ever be you.
Fruit-fly habits forever performed
Because we are made that way.

Jim Ferguson is a poet and prose writer based in Glasgow, Scotland. He has published several collections of poetry and two novels. More info on website: http://www.jimfergusonpoet.co.uk Most recent collection ‘Songs for Lara’ was published in 2022 by Seahorse Publications.