There is a menu on the wall
like none you’ve ever seen before.

To read it, you’ll need a hard
hat and a stomach for the dark.

Long ago they came with flame,
burning the shadows to hide

where they knew for a brief
time they would be safe

from the hunting party
and the hungry pack.

Safe enough to laugh,
safe enough to sing,
safe enough to sleep.

Here, on a day like this,
a hand like yours dipped

pigment on a finger-end
and drew the first world ever imagined!

 

*

Andy Nuttall lives in the North East of England. Andy’s children’s poems have appeared in Tyger Tyger Magazine, The Dirigible Balloon (up, up and away!) and Parakeet Magazine. He has worked for twenty-five years in adult social care. Andy has had grown-up stuff featured in Wave Six of Iambapoet Sound Platform (2021) curated by the poet Mark Antony Owen. Andy is currently trying his creative hand at picture book stories.