Christopher Whitby
A Refusal to Mourn the Death of a Child
If I were
to choose a memory,
it would be
when lion and tiger
first came to tea.
They’re shut away now,
like everything else.
Well Now
My mother sometimes used to say
how much she still
missed her father,
a man I scarcely knew.
Now as she braves widowhood,
I too drop a stone
and do not hear a splash.
Christopher Whitby studied English at Cambridge, followed by postgraduate work on the Renaissance figure John Dee at The Shakespeare Institute. After many years as a teacher, he now works as a graphic designer. In 2007 he devised and ran an international sonnet competition. The shortlist anthology of that competition, Hand Luggage Only, was published in May 2008 and is available from http://www.openpoetry.org.uk.
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