There is a small, tattered, photograph,
black and white:
my mother, and me, asleep, in her arms,
against a backdrop of late-winter birches.
She is wearing a smart, chequered, overcoat; belted.
I am bound up, tight like a pupa, in a heavy woollen blanket.

And on her face is a look of such rapt concern,
as though she knew, even then, that I was utterly defenceless.