oracle
and she said I had been
a pig in rural Ireland
one of Shakespeare’s groundlings
a Neapolitan song
a Polish engine driver
a map of Europe
an incense bearer in Santiago de Compostela
thunder on Helvellyn
a stinging nettle
and Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great
I said are you sure?
there came no answer only
the lapping of the water
the wind in the trees
the echoing footsteps
of the next client approaching
David Callin lives, if not quite at the back of beyond, certainly within hailing distance of it, in the Celtic archipelago. He has had poems in several magazines, including Other Poetry, Orbis and Envoi, and online in Snakeskin and Antiphon.