Alchemisland

My cat was gone for three hours

Three hours spent clock glowering

In the garden, as if we’d changed the rules of that Marco Polo game,

I shook a Dreamies bag whilst shouting his name again and again

Usually at his name he comes thundering, full summoning

This time nothing came running meowing from our shrubbery

Should I start to worry, three hours is not five hours at least

Still, I am restless, without peace and a solace seeker

Sneak out to the wet back garden borders, wet socks no sneakers

Hope to catch a glimpse of him sneaking there

Speaking to him but he’s not there, speaking to the air

Neighbours looking out, smelling ganja on the air, wonder have I finally gone spare

I keep fidgeting, pulling at my moustache hair 

Looking out the window, as if trying to catch my spouse in an affair

Of this affair she is ignorant wholly, for she, Aoife, remains asleep

Thoughts not there, padlocked off

She dreams but the fringelooming mare of night

Dares bolt his paddock

Outside a kind of heat-free Irish sun signals summer, but on hangs the Holly King

After all my hollering he ambles in carefree, mouth yawning like a devil’s sick of sin

After cradling I chide you for your lacking punctuality and ill manners

He is Bulgakov’s Behemoth, standing by print-streaked garden windows 

Princely in the sun, chasing around a fly or moth, his mouth frothing

At a mouse only he sees; he is Saki’s tact-lacking tongue cat Tobermory.