Ron Tomkins
Putting the Cat Out
He has an attack of the dropsy
before achieving the phone, his hands
the noses of blind piglets snuffling.
‘Sarah, it’s Ken. I’m
on Everest. I’m -’
‘No wonder our bills are climbing’,
she says. ‘And you’re so faint
the banshees are sure wailing tonight.
Anyway, Algernon’s fretful,
and it’s me for bye-byes. Bye-bye’.
She goes. Now the phone
is held a hostage of the ice. The gale
becomes a stiletto honed
for business and investigating
his throat. He’s freezing. Solid.
But a shadow is levitating the snows
towards him. It’s his wife
in the dressing-gown -
dahlia’d, delphinium’d, rhododendron’d -
he’s labelled her Garden Centre.
She’s offering him a ball of fur
starred with two emeralds.
He takes it, to enact the ritual
which is his dying nodding to the world,
and putting the cat out.
Page(s) 58
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