Marjorie Holmes

Family Values

(from Keeping the Balance)

She knits them into a pattern
and some have silent screams
and some she will unravel
when they cannot share her dreams.

Born to feed a hunger
to be an offering –
the deathbed of their childhood
is her arrested spring.

There is never any let-up
though from work she must retire
as she sits and knits her children
in the banner of desire.

Marjorie Holmes's booklet Keeping the Balance has just been published by Survivors' Press (ISBN 978-1-874595-20-5), at £4+£1 p&p.