My unborn

It should have wept at my funeral

It could have been anything it liked

It may have made me a grandmother

It may have been pale or rosy or dark,

comfortable and perhaps sang like a bird.

Or maybe serious and childless

with a passion for cats,

I wonder what grace it might have developed?

Scars, broken bones, broken hearts.

Would it had swum, rode a bike, took exams

Been beautiful or manly?

How can I speak of a life never born

expectant, important and sad?

My one small child, never delivered, never made.

I've so many questions for you.

I don't understand why I think of it all the time.

Probably for I have no family.

It came and grew to an inch before lost,

I was never to know its fancies.

I see it each day, on a street, in a face.

made real by a baby which grew,

and didn't suffer the fate it had

of being washed down a loo.

The mystery is you tried to be here.

Your absence made me feel like death.

Snatched away in an accident,

through a feeling I will never understand.

You had no name at the time and still have none now,

or sex or hair or eyes,

yet you were as human to me

as your mother was.

By now, you should have been many years old,

Scoffing and maybe ashamed of your parent.

But I would have kept a warm bedroom for you,

Washed your clothes and fed your cat.

I'd carry your photo in my purse.

And these words would not be written,

The day you fell away from me,

The day I died a little.

Wicca? Huh!

Well I must say that I don’t think much of the East End branch of the Wicca society because they’re not the most friendly of folk. Thank goodness the full moon is over because that’s the last time I invite them over to celebrate the new Luna month.

I thought they might welcome a new member which is what I was hoping to become but not any more. They moaned about the height of my front door for a start saying that it was in the wrong feng shue position. They told me my front door should be at the side. Silly buggers!

Then they said I had provided the wrong sort of cakes and that I should have used solar salt instead of sea salt when making them. As if it really mattered. One tall lady with a huge wart, insisted that I let her, equally warty, cat roam around freely and you know what I’m like on pets.

But in the interest of friendship, I said it was okay and the blasted black thing spent most of the evening rubbing itself up and down my legs. Now today, I’ve got these warty blemishes that show through my tights. When I went out last night, it looked like I had several small thin hamsters attached to my legs under my tights. I looked stupid.

There was Mr. Glass, their leader and a wizard in his own right who was alright but he insisted that he bring his own incense along and because he worked for the company that made it, he also got free samples so he wasn’t sparse about shedding it around if you get my meaning. Well, they had only been here half an hour and my poor old front room looked like Whitechaple on a Saturday night in 1888. I couldn’t see anything and the amount of times I banged my shins on my blessed computer table, well, I lost count. But so much so that when I checked my E Mail later on, after they had gone and I had had the windows open for an hour (which caused all that wind and rain to pour in the room by the way) I saw there was still incense smoke in my Mac!! And there still is. I’m looking at it now. And oh God! The smell.

He said it was made from Egyptian cat poo and I believe him!. And now it's everywhere. Can’t get rid of the stuff. They said the place is now purified and I believe that as well for what poor fool would breath this, let alone live among it! You wouldn’t get a bacteria living here now.

They brought a sack full of toads of course but didn’t bother taking all of them home. And as I when to sleep I kept hearing them croaking and barking and jumping in and out of the toilet. I had dreams of South America all night long.

They insisted that they did a little circle which I thought was going to be alright at first but when they took my round table out of the room and replaced it with a pile of sticks and lit it, I began to have serious second doubts. Then they all went ‘sky-clad’ (being naked) and started to chant and run around in a circle. Seeing 13 old people’s bits flying about didn’t do me any favours I can tell you. I’m going to have nightmares to come in the coming months.

What she must have thought upstairs I don’t know as we all shouted “UMPY-UMPY” louder and louder, faster and faster until we all collapsed naked in a heap, not being able to see anything because of the smoke. I thought I had taken hold of the master’s wooden rod with the ruby tip until I realised I hadn’t. Thank goodness he never minded.

So, never again. Take it from me. You stick with the old Christianity. Its safer for the hearth and home.

A very exhausted, smoky, flea-ridden, wet Molly