Mother's Day Poetry (and freebie)

It's almost Mother's Day (or Mothering Sunday if you're in the UK). Here in Australia, Mother's Day is Sunday the 13th of May. Since I'm both mother and daughter, I've managed to convince my poetry partner (also a mother and daughter) Carolyn Howard-Johnson to let me giveaway our motherly poetry book She Wore Emerald Then.  From now through to May 14th (US time) you can grab a copy of She Wore Emerald Then from Smashwords for the budget-smashing price of $0.00.  Just use Coupon code KT98C at checkout.  You can even use the code to 'gift' the book to someone. Following is a poem from the collection that I wrote for my first child. If you prefer a hard copy, you can get a copy at Amazon.  Happy Mother's Day to all you fantabulous mothers out there.

Whorl

From this point
everything begins.
He comes out crying
no need for a smack
eyes wide
fighting the light and shocks
slippery, red and incredibly solid.
From this point it all begins.
The whorl
where superfine hair grows
like one of those spiral galaxies
Andromeda or Triangulum
full of stars
and the promise of real life
different from anything we have known
but starting at the same point.

Magdalena Ball runs The Compulsive Reader. She is the author of the poetry books Repulsion Thrust and Quark Soup, the novels Black Cow and Sleep Before Evening, a nonfiction book The Art of Assessment, and, in collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Deeper Into the Pond, Blooming Red, Cherished Pulse, She Wore Emerald Then, and Imagining the Future. She also runs a radio show, The Compulsive Reader Talks. Find out more about Magdalena at http://www.magdalenaball.com