A Poem by Nuala Watt

Seahorse

As though a seahorse drifted in their ward
The night shift blank your father. He can’t be.
Generally, they chase away the fathers

But my cerebral palsy holds him here.
Until we are discharged they’ll have to bear
The strangeness of a man strapped to an infant

And crooning Louis Armstrong whilst I boak.
I am mostly opioids this evening,
But every single question comes to me.

You still need to be stowed on somebody
And I’m admonished not to carry you
So your father must be like a seahorse.

Nuala Watt’s poems have appeared most recently on BBC Scotland’s Loop. Poems have appeared in anthologies including Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches 2017) and A Year of Scottish Poems (Macmillan 2018). Recent work has also been published by Atrium.