Loving the “I”

I also love the I, the way it holds everything

I almost know in one great stroke, one great love,

I draw it, though I don’t give it flitches,

have never heard the word until I read it.

Someone tells me about a village called Great Dunmow

where the married couple judged the happiest

are awarded a flitch of bacon. It sounds like hell,

I say, knowing how competitive I am,

imagining dragging my husband down the road,

our smiles stretched across our faces,

never being able to argue—can you imagine,

having to testify: no I have never regretted

our marriage, not for one second, one minute,

one hour, one day. Our arguments taking place

in whispers, frantic snakes of words writhing

in the air between us. All this is to say, my I

does not have flitches. I teach it to my daughter,

top to bottom, I, I, I, the easiest letter

in the world to write. We draw a line of them

marching along the page. I tell her I love you

and she sings out I love you too Mummy.

It takes time for a child to refer to themselves

as I instead of in the third person by name.

But the I is singing in her blood now.

I know what I was before she came.

Now my I throws down its spear

and says I will stand here, and here,

and here, and the I is a stem of a note

without a head, the I is a missing table leg,

the I is running through my poem

like golden thread, look, here I am

trying to write whilst she shouts again and again

Mummy, look at me! I am here!