D: Bournville

Bournville

The chocolate brown cat who sleeked
up my fire escape one freezing night, under
a spilt-talc auditorium of stars, seemed

lost and I would have taken her in if not
for the jealousy of my first love, my gently
violent pet. They tangoed a tango of brutal,

spiky, hate and she stayed on the balcony for
another day and night before he beat her and
sent her away. I called her Bournville after

the chocolate my mother used to have each
Christmas, which, brown-black and rippled with
shadows, was exactly the colour of her hair.