HARRY

 

If you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly - Arnold Edinborough

‘Harry’s dead,’ she said.

Her words by phone pierced me:

shards of glass.

I’d gone for milk and bread:

I paid, left the store, a robot.

 

Harry was wrapped

in a baby rug

on the lounge,

still warm, flaccid,

eyes wide open.

 

He was adventurous, curious, unrestrained:

it was unreasonable to say, ‘keep him in-doors’.

He had no sense of danger

and that fine morning when the car hit him

he would not have known.

 

A passing couple with a baby in a pram

found him on the road, moved him to a safe place,

not knowing if he was alive or dead.

They phoned Kathy

whose name and number were on his tag.

 

Two years we had him.

Possessed of a perennial kitten’s spirit

he would bring lizards, or bits of them,

to play with in our kitchen.

He’d killed a rosella,

 

He would chew books.

He severed a critical wire

in my hearing aid one night

and brought the parts

to us in bed.

 

He came as a kitten soon after I retired –

he symbolised renewal and new life.

 

Now that he has gone

we are left locked down,

searching for other emblems of youth.