Cindy Hossain

Yesterday Dream

I couldn’t give you life

now all I have to offer is this poem

There are no photos of you to bring home

two lines on a stick, stuffed in a drawer

and they have now faded too

Like a dream from the past

I grasped at the idea

knowing full it wouldn’t last

My body will recover

But what hasn’t become left a scar, like no other

I bore not a child

but a soul cratered like the moon

You were unexpected, unplanned

But not unloved

Sleep in piece my angel - you left too soon

Indents

Jack leans forward and presses his lips against Stacey’s, while Flaurance tends to their

newborn in the adjacent room.

“Can you believe that!” Lucy exclaims, using the remote to pause the soap opera.

“I mean, poor Flaurance just gave birth to his offspring!”

Lucy looks at the empty space next to her on the sofa, seeking Clair’s opinion of Jack’s

distasteful dalliance. She stares at the indents on the cushion where Clair used to sit. Sighing

loudly and pinching her nose, she pushes play on the remote. It’s been three months since

Clair passed away, and sometimes she still forgets.

Sandcastles

“Now pat, pat, pat,” Natasha instructs her son, and watches as he taps the bucket with

the red plastic shovel gripped between his small fingers.

She lifts the bucket, and they both cheer at the almost perfect sandcastle. For a

moment, a memory pulls at the deep wound that her son’s presence has stitched together.

I wish you were still here - then you could have helped me teach your little brother to be king

of the sandcastles; we could have celebrated his creations together.

“Another one, Mummy!” her son says, handing her the empty bucket.

Cindy Hossain was raised in South Africa. She emigrated to the United Kingdom, where she now looks after her young family whilst doing a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing.