Katri

Anaya’s lullaby for her only living child, circa 2025 AD.

[This poem falls near the end of ALPHABET, but chronologically occurs towards the middle of VIYAKRA. It’s hard being the most fertile woman alive but surely somebody must to fix the birth rate……]

Mama said Don’t get attached

She’s so small she probably won’t

Survive the night again

And she said it rough, she said it more than once

But I, I didn’t listen! No darling I didn’t listen

I didn’t care what could happen

Yes I would accept anything that happened. To hold you. Just to look at you–

Lying there all pink and new–

And small for your age but I was too–

Yes I was a spring fish too

Daddy said My God she’s so little!

Just like you I could fit her in a hand–

Me I need both arms to hold you, wouldn’t let you go for all the gold in Ireland

or the silver in England, not all the tea in China, all the shipwrecked treasure

in the deep of all the world’s water! No you couldn’t pay me

You’d have to kill me.

To let go of my only daughter! To hold you. Just to look at you

Lying there all pink and new, and small for your age but I was too

Yes I was a spring fish too

Your Uncle Sasha didn’t want to but he cried

Looking at you in the NICU. Last time we were all here

it was a much worse night. But now we get to watch you turn into

golden pink from the blue! Of course I kept you. Of course I kept you–

I didn’t care what could happen. Yes I would accept anything that happened

To hold you. Just to look at you. Lying there all pink and new

and small for your age but I was too

Yes I was a spring fish too

And I was back to work. Because this is Britania

So you stayed home with granny and the ghosts and the cats and the doggy who all love you dearly–

And away across the sea there awaits your real Tati!

He’s at war too, with the world and with himself–

before I left London I said to bring the flaming sword off the shelf–

And I had to go. Nobody was more sorry than me that I had to go

but I guess I brought an extra little souvenir!

Plucked from the prime of auld Hampstead Heath!

A little longer lived than a postcard, though I carried you everywhere with me!

Softer than a coffee cup, stickier than a magnet, and sweeter than any tin of caramel toffee!

Yes you were the prize I won at the silversmiths’ fair!

My little goldfish, my little surprise!

Good soft curls of breakfast tea-coloured hair and your daddy’s Irish turquoise eyes!

My beaky nose and near perfect teeth, carnations and roses all bloomed in your cheeks!

And I was too busy, so I was your special cousin while you were away with the fairies.

All safe and sound in the country, my petite changeling now come home to me–

Come here til I tell you all that you’ll be my tinker my tailor my evergreen sailor

My little mermaid! Now it’s time to swim home, yes–

All the way across the sea