. . . with birth as condition . . .

    by Murray Alfredson

for Natasha, 1974-2005

Before our birth we carry death within us,

from the first moment of the male which burrows

through the ovum wall, from the faint flicker

in fallopian dark, each moment lived

now moves us closer to our last, be that

before implanting or ninety years beyond.

But in a special way that hung between

those coupling gametes, your death lay hid to form

a tiny spot; that berry swelled and ripened.

Silently it lurked inside your skull

until it blistered, burst and bled — a flash,

a headache came.  You slept and slipped away.

© 2009 Murray Alfredson

* Previously published in Nectar and light, Friendly Street new poets, 12, Adelaide: Friendly Street Poets and Wakefield Press, 2007.

Murray Alfredson has worked as a librarian, lecturer and in Buddhist chaplaincy. He is a prize-winning poet, has published essays and poems in Australia, England, and America, and a collection, ‘Nectar and light’, in Friendly Street new poets, 12, Adelaide: Friendly Street Poets and Wakefield Press, 2007.