Don’t be in a hurry, the buds tell me.
Open when you’re ready.
What does it matter if others blossom
before you?
Remember the gulls
how they fly in loose formation over the sea
at sunset,
how there’d always be some bringing up the rear,
the stragglers.
It’s not a race as our Prime Minister said.
They get there in their own sweet time.
Like my teachers said of me, you may be slow, John,
but you get there in the end,
It’s okay to be a straggler.
Snip
Snip
Snip
Like scissors
Snipping hair
Your
Swift
Little beaks
Snip bugs
From the air
What is the cat looking for under the gate?
Perhaps the old tom two doors down trudging across the road like a sloppy sentence.
Perhaps the purr that left her mysteriously six months ago.
Or maybe she’s dreaming of the Krazy Kat cartoons she loved read to her as a kitten.
Or what the rest of her siblings are up to at the Pet Barn and whether they landed on her feet like her when she was adopted.
Or maybe she’s just curious. She’s a cat after all.
Oooops. Looks like I turned the heater off prematurely.
I seem to make a habit of it.
Maybe because I was born prematurely.
I don’t finish novels either.
or most short stories.
Even half my poems I bail out from.
Relationships too.
I have meltdowns. Walkouts.
But hey ! I have three kids.
Nothing premature there.
And I’m still with my gal.
Maybe I can finally say, I’m over it.
But that might be a little premature.
There’s a miniature submarine lurking
at the bottom of the aquarium .
It is smooth and black with feathery gills .
It is an axolotyly .
We call him Axle , of course .
Most of the time he just hangs around
amongst the water weeds .
Perhaps he’s lonely and depressed .
But every now and then
he rouses himself
and cruises around as if on patrol .
The other fish give him right of way .
Perhaps he thinks he really is a submarine
on an important mission ,
keeping the waters safe for democracy ,
for instance .
Sometimes when he cruises past the sides
of the tank
I give him the thumbs up .
It seems to give him a lift .
I’m on my own again.
My partner’s hit the sack.
The cat’s snuggled up in her basket.
Tiffany’s asleep in the tank, light out.
Even the mozzies have called it a day..
There’s nothing on TV.
Perhaps someone will text. Someone …
Is this what it’s going to be like?
Is it any good pleading? Thompson says.
For your life? Not really.
But you can’t just toss me aside like a dog carcass, not after all I’ve done for you.
You were more than serviceable, Hunter admits. But you’ve served your purpose. You can’t argue with me.
Will it be painless?
Yes.
Well, get it over with then.
One minute, Hunter says.
He reaches into his satchel and pulls out his laptop.
Finish your drink, Hunter says. Out with the old and in with the new, he smiles, keyboarding fiercely.
He taps the delete button.
And with that, Thompson is gone.
John Malone 