6.9.11

Philip Larkin, Take One Home For The Kiddies






Take One Home For The Kiddies 
On shallow straw, in shadeless glass,
 Huddled by empty bowls, they sleep:
 No dark, no dam, no earth, no grass -
 Mam, get us one of them to keep.
 
 
Living toys are something novel,
 But it soon wears off somehow.
 Fetch the shoebox, fetch the shovel
- Mam, we're playing funerals now.