those idiot neighbours are rutting again
their grey drub like a monkey chained to a radiator
through the middle of it all a thick slick of clay
down which cattle
long ago
in the rain
puddled out a canal—in The Handbook of Wild Animals
of Britain and Europe it states that 'the situation is different
in the Baltic', of which one has little doubt
—it goes on to say that 'many large insects are eaten'
but this too is obvious in the circumstances
all day on the hilltops the grey slick mustered
and slid
he sat there on the road waiting for the lahar
which might release him from this intolerable banging
all night every night the same clanking of some ghost
locking doors his face in the pillow unshaven now
his breath all beer and barbecue and smoke
she lies awake for a long time afterwards wondering
about the headlights that spread magic lanterns
across her curtains and over the ceiling
Politics she thinks that's all it is
men just smell bad and snore
in the morning he wants more he is still drunk
but by now the barbecue has guttered and gone sour
on his breath
his advances are halfhearted and she buys him off with tea
and TV and the invigorating memories of who did what
there in the garden
the book says that 'they race through the treetops
and leap prodigiously'
she reads it in the shower watching the pages darken
clutching the cat tight against her stomach
in less than a minute it stops struggling
and the blood from the raking of her abdomen
swirls down into the plug
these are these are the moments she thinks
for which as children we yearned these are
the pregnant cat showers from which
there could be no return
almost without thinking she padlocks herself
to the radiator
starts to beat it with the cat a dead sort of clang
against the wall rings rang this she sighs yes
will give them things of which to think she thought she sang
he's still up there face down in his morning stink
she'll clean it all up later maybe his blink
if there's time
if the bells again
don't start to chime
.
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