A Mobile for Katie
When you were little, before you had a room
of your own, in which to grow
cynical, and smart, and sometimes biting,
despite the heavy doses we applied
of Beatrix Potter, and a whole
menagerie of anthropomorphic
animals who behaved rather well,
however trying they found their circumstances,
your cot was in our room, and we suspended
a musical mobile above it: rabbits
that we would set a-running if you woke.
Sometimes I’d stir, and see your mother
at your side, in the chiaroscuro
of the nightlight, like a Leonardo
in muted crayon, smoky pinks and greens:
Madonna, child and quattrocento bunnies.
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.