As kinship care week continues we are proud to share kinship voices. Here is a new poem by kinship carer Penny.
I’m on the phone to my mum
stressing about part-time hours,
consolidating overdrafts
and how I’m going to cope
with my soon-to-be child
who comes on the phone,
breathes like Darth Vader
and murmurs two syllables
that closely approximates my name.My brother arrives home from his appointment,
Ooh he’s got a little box for his Methadone
she says, as though he’s returned from school
with an Easter card decorated with crushed
egg shells or an orange
tied up in tartan ribbon and pierced
all over with cloves,her optimism – bright
as a yellow painted egg box daffodil –
that it would ever occur to him
to protect his child from what he does.
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