That Old Cot

We'd married in a hurry, like you do when you're a kid.
Didn't plan ahead, we'd got a lifetime.

I was eighteen, you were too,
and we thought we'd wait a bit
til we heard the patter of tiny feet.

The house was minescule, but we soon made a home
and you'd earn us a big one by and by.
We were going up in the world!

We were 21 and thriving
in our three-bedroomed cottage.
Maybe now's the time, we said.

So we tried every evening, laughing together at the cliché
of "family planning" and "taking precautions".
But I was regular as clockwork
and we were discouraged.

The doctor said:
"Don't give up, there's still hope.
There's nothing wrong with either of you."
As comforts go, that wasn't much of one.

The baby's room was fitted, but we sold the toys.
Momma's cot, old and tired, was scrapped.
Not much use for a childless couple.

We got older and you got promoted,
and we went on holidays together like we were still in our teens.
And we'd stopped hoping, and started coping
with the jagged edges of broken dreams.

Then I was 28 and my sister got a baby.
You took me on holiday and told me not to care.
We didn't need anyone else.

But I did care. I was the oldest. She was the mom.

We went on a second honeymoon to celebrate our decade,
and I wondered where I'd gone wrong.
Was fate punishing us for too much love?

Then we got home and I was sick every day for a week.
The doctor smiled knowingly at my stomach.

That darn old cot, cluttering up my yard.
Wouldn't you know that the second I tossed it out, I'd want it?