This year you would have been sixty
your friends would have thrown you a ‘do’ and you,
all of 5 foot 3, would have been a little shy.
Your children would have been here, your cake
would be pale green, home-made,
tulips or narcissi on the table and your oldest son
would have made a speech about how you’d never
forgotten the time you were ill, missed starting school,
spent a year in hospital hoping for a miracle.
There’s a photo of us on the front step
of the house in Blackburn, eyes screwed up
against the sunshine.
On and off I’ve imagined that birthday too;
if you had ever been five, there would have been
banana sandwiches, Hoola Hoops, butterfly buns.
Liz McPherson
From the National Poetry Day 2024 collection
This poem and others also appear in Shivering in the Wind published by Yaffle Press