David Mohan

FONTANELLE

After your birth your head
lay in its nest,
a new laid egg.

It was flecked with hair
like straw. I felt
the crack beneath your skin.

At the centre
where the skull dipped,
the scalp went soft.

Each day
we cradled the place
that smelt like sleep.

It had a name
like the first burst
of the source.

Out of the dark,
the stuff of birth,
you rested,

the wound
to your long quiet
beginning to seal.

David Mohan is based in Dublin, Ireland, and and received a PhD in Literature from Trinity College. He writes poetry and short stories. He has been published in Alba, elimae, killauthor and The Prose Poems. He has won the Hennessy/ Sunday Tribune New Irish Writer Award. In 2011 he won the Gemini Poetry Open, and in 2012 he won the Cafe WritersÕ International Poetry Competition. He has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. "Fontanelle" first appeared in Irish journal The Stony Thursday Book.