Blue

I had a cat named 'Blue'
rhymed with Kalamazoo
Grey with stripes
a tabby

My mother hated cats
a family thing
One suffocated a child
allegedly

But he was only
six weeks old
A kitten

A ball of mischief
fluff
and claws like fishing hooks

I carried him home
in a cardboard box
flaps interlocked

I knew I had a cat in there
his arrow-head
bursting out
ears back
fuse lit

It didn't take long

Those hunter's eyes
the cute paws
playful kills...

But the tiny tiger
pushed his luck
climbing velvet wallpaper
swinging from curtains
and circuiting walls
like a manic dado rail

He settled in
as I walked out
became the family cat
Endeared himself
attacking feet
as they watched TV

Bringing live mice
and blackbirds
to unleash
as early morning gifts
on bedsheets

Who wouldn't fall for that?

David loved him
more than me
Much more, probably

But Blue was the only one
who never cried
the night that David died

Fickle creatures, cats

He played the part
of surrogate son
Peed in my dad's car
just for fun

That takes your mind off things

He helped to make
the house a home
Slightly ragged and torn
here and there
with a permanent smell
of fish in the air

He saw my marriage
come and go
Chased and taunted
by my kids

And when they left
soon reclaimed
the old spare bed
and didn't grumble
as long as he was fed

Fully seventeen
when he took the blow
that caught my dad's breath
I'd left for Leeds by then
but heard it like
a family death

Holding the instrument
of bereavement
Staring at the wall
I saw him at full stretch
like a pike
recently brought to the bank

Cute tongue shot
through bloodied teeth
Empty eye-socket
filled with dirt
He wouldn't have seen the car

Box-to-box in seventeen years

A cardboard box of
memories and tears
Laid to rest
without any fuss
in the works incinerator

What goes around
comes around, dad