The golden hare
I colour in a hare for my Mam for her birthday,
hop between radio channels and pencil shades:
red to maroon, blue to indigo, brown to russet,
softest gold for the hare and the glow around it.
It is long in body and limb and ear, like our cat:
my Mam calls Kitt “the hare”, family legend now.
When I saw the postcard in the set, among snakes
and jellyfish and birds, I knew. I had to be brave.
The duty to bring the hare to life feels immense
but here I am, 80s songs hovering like night mist,
mixing with the scent of wood shavings, waxy leads,
and I don’t let myself stop until the hare finally is.
Last year, I coloured her a perfect, neat dormouse.
The hare is different: looser, hazier, hard to catch.
I send her a photo and she can’t stop looking at it,
she says, and I feel so close to her from so far away.
Elizabeth Gibson is a Manchester-based poet and linguist. She was a winner at the 2017 Northern Writers’ Awards, and her work has previously appeared in Ink, Sweat & Tears, 404 Ink, Antiphon, Atrium, Cake, Confingo, Litro, Popshot and Strix. Twitter:https://twitter.com/Grizonne