Two Poems by Abeer Ameer

The Photograph

He can’t remember her name now.
Refers to her as Um al-awlaad
‘Mother of the boys’.
He does remember
she’s not with him anymore.

Perhaps
the moment she collapsed
is still in the memory store
from which all else ebbs away.
He doesn’t say.

In his pockets he keeps
red toy cars, golden teaspoons,
elastic bands around folded tissues.
The photograph is safe

in a see-through bag.
They stand on the balcony, all smiles.
His arm around her. A sunny day.
Behind them: valleys and hills.

She looks younger each time.
Yet, years his junior
she's already moved into the realm
of dust and the Unseen.

He sits alone in the living room
puts down his magnifying glass
kisses the photo, returns it to his breast pocket.
Calls out to me:

‘Um alawlaad! Sa’abesh?
Mother of the boys! What time is it?’

Birdcage

I can feel each rib, the bars
of a birdcage chest through pyjama top,
thermal vest. I hold him
stop him toppling over
as he sways one side to the other.

Humble tread upon the earth
the feather-weight of his steps
not making any sound;
strained breathing
and whistle of his hearing aid

fill the silence
of this unsteady fledgling.
A flutter of accessory muscles
and intercostals; he leans forward
to catch his last breaths.

Each bony suture, tendon and sinew
bearing witness to the blue and green
vulnerability of man.
The black and white
of no-man’s land

he exists in between
transience and infinity
like a caged nightingale
ready for the moment
of release.

Abeer Ameer’s poems have appeared widely in print and online journals and anthologies including Acumen, Poetry Wales, Planet, Magma, The Interpreter’s House, New Welsh Reader, Prole, The High Window, Atrium, The Rialto and Long Poem Magazine. Her debut poetry collection, Inhale/Exile, in which she shares stories of her Iraqi forebears, was published by Seren in February 2021.