A Children's Story

Dirty little rascal. You smell like a beast.
Odd mixture of wet cat and feral fox or
Maybe, hedgehog prickly like thistle thorns.
The thick line of caked mud running under your fingernails speaks of earthworms spied upon and rivulets of rain dammed.
I think of the decapitated mouse deposited on the patio
And how you showed it to me proudly.
Cats only feed those they love mum.

I remember loving a warm scrap of black fur that slept in my bed and lay across my shoulders when I watched TV.

I remember my Grandpa’s dog and how I’d fall asleep pillowed
on her belly till they dragged me to bed.

I remember wistfully the wonderful afternoon we spent floating home made boats manned with toy soldiers down the stream at the bottom of the garden. And how we sent them off with a full salute and sat and watched them drift away silently as if they were part of Operation Neptune itself, off to fight the war in France.

I begin with you
Your grimy nails
And savage scent
And sink slowly
Into dreams of my own.
Weaving wearily through time
To my own childhood stories
Fleetingly glimpsed
Like so many pages
Of an old fashioned
Flip book floating by.
I begin with you and
Turn full circle to myself.
Dirty little rascal, you smell like a beast.