The Hippopotamus Copyright © Sally Gardner 2010

To, my dearest Abigail,
with love, laughter, warm salt breezes, Brighton honeymoon.
I thought we lived superior lives to animals.
Screams of shattered limbs and stinking gangrene,
bodies seeped in mud, pierced with shrapnel – gunfire,
create a constant cinematic replay.

At Whitsun, our first anniversary,
I’ll imagine we push the pram together.
My arms will wrap around you in Regent’s Park,
before we introduce my namesake to the hippopotamus.

THEN THE TELEGRAM ARRIVED.

I fed and changed the baby,
passed her to a neighbour,
caught the number ten to Fulham
which stopped outside the Military Hospital.

With pebbles piled behind my ribs,
I traced strange contours on his face,
dreamed of sailing on the Somme,
caught the number ten back home,
to feed and change the baby.

London, Whitsun 1917,
parks filled with coloured parasols,
picnics, khaki uniforms and children.
Sun-hats, wide brims with flowers.

I pinned pink roses on my wedding hat,
to shade shadows, lines, unshed tears,
cover unkempt hair, streaks of grey –
to match my white muslin dress.

As I carried daughter Fredericka
through the turnstile at the zoo,
parrots shrieked and chimpanzees
puzzled which side was preferable.

I found the hippopotamus.
No lake surrounded by terrestrial grasses,
just mud, a trough, barbed wire on fences.
Observed the animal’s despondence –
eyes like battered opaque marbles
held the child across my shoulder,
tore pale pink petals like fragile skin,
and scattered them into the familiar pen.