Honey You're Home!

I wondered how long I could hide in the guava tree
before I’m discovered.

I’d clambered up as dinner time fell
and found a tolerable cleft
to rest my back against.

As the minutes ticked on resentment stirred.
Hello? V.I.P, M.I.A.?!
I heard the unwelcomed scratch of metal against china,
a stifled laugh and the chink of glass,
and my heart sank.
Had no one noticed
that there was now skin on my soup?

The cicadas broke suddenly into song,
nearly casting me out of my leafy camouflage.
A light flickered off in the house
to add to my panic.
Hey! I’m up here!
Anyone care?

Soon they would shoot the bolts
in the great west door
and quarantine themselves till dawn.
I yearned for someone to note in time
that toothpaste had not been squeezed in the middle,
or favourite teddy tucked firmly beneath the blankets
with me and Mrs Brown Hen in my cot.

I willed for panic to ensue;
for general mayhem to unleash for my sake.
Crisscross calls resounding in the county.
Flares streaking leaden skies like fiery tearstains,
and mournful drums rumbling a deep lament
that she is gone, she is gone, she is gone!!
Tears for fears: there has to be a weepin’ and a wailin’ -
perhaps a priest to be called, just in case.
Whisky toddies for fraying nerves
to be poured by the hour;
and twisted hankies
cutting off circulation in blue veined hands, until
a limp, whimper of a body is finally recovered:
shallow breathed and a shoeless foot,
buried in a mound of military grey regulation blankets.
Carefully, tenderly restored at last to grateful arms
and repentant, warm bosoms heaving with atonement,
but still laced with the venom
that only guilty parents could muster.

Oh thank God thank God -
Honey, you’re home.

I ache, my limbs now paralysed from their awkward crush,
and drop, invisible and Chaplinesque,
onto the grass below.
I saunter in, unnoticed still,
to scoop the congealed skin off my vichysoisse.