i.
It started with a river, the way cities do, a glitter in the grass hardly more than a cabbage-white wing, a heart flick faint as stars and as far away. Flesh of my Flesh, the lullaby goes. It started with birds, a hatch of sparrows, the way all small birds are sparrows, in the backyard honeysuckle. Bone of my bone. Let the birds and rivers name themselves. The fairy-wren teaches her offspring the song she’ll know them by, stitches each note to the next, threading it out between them.
ii.
I call you grandson, and you look
and in that look, you become my grandson.
Like this, like light returning from one mirror
to another, we create each other.
‘Lullaby’ appears in Angelina D’Roza‘s second full-length collection The Blue Hour. A beautifully produced hardback, it is available now from Longbarrow Press; you can order the book securely by clicking on the relevant PayPal button below.
The Blue Hour: £13
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