Prayer(for my daughter) Poem by Glenn Colquhoun

I'm bad at this

and you know
I'm opposed

but just in case
there is something to it

let me ask what my daughter asks.

Please - don't let there
be burglars tonight

or tsunami
or storms.

I myself would like the storms.

There is a list of animals
we were hoping to talk to:

elephants,
tigers,
kangaroos
and mice.

Could we make it all of them?

And birds as well.
But not fish.

Maybe fish.

Can we get back to you?

As for witches:

let them all fall
at the toll
of the bell.

(Although I quite like witches as well)

There is little else to ask.

We have love
and water
and imagination.

But if none of the above are possible

let this last demand
be the sum of all
our hopes and dreams:

simply one morning to wake,

to a horse, of course,
fresh from a distant land,
foam-flanked
but magnificent,
eating grass
on the front lawn.

Let there be in his eye a calm look
of confidence
and reassurance

as though we had been summoned.

This at least seems
a worthy request.

Nothing more.
Nothing less.