A Very Male Perspective of the Birthday Woman

She’s in possession!

Shouts her commentators

Seventy minutes gone

Ten to go

Of a big rugby game

The opposition  

Are edging ahead

Suddenly

The maul tide turns

A great shift of energy

inside the pile of men

And the ball

Is turned over

And the opposing team has it

And with it

They break.

(A very male perspective

Of the birthday woman

Who’s starkers single -

Not even the faintest wave

Of a man on the horizon.

She needs the pain;

Wants to know it,

Willing to risk

Post-natal whatever

As a forty candle salute -

In the absence of a child’s

Tip-toed effusion

In which lungs contract

To two sun-dried shrivels - 

Allows an adult’s

Laboured breath

To breathe a wish free.)