Mechanical Bear
I would give you a mechanical bear
and watch it move across the table-top.
Soon the mechanism would go, poor bear,
but you’d improvise and make it climb walls.
No bear in history had made it as far.
The first bear in space, the first in Atlantis.
Impervious to any restrictions
other than your imagination.
Later on, we would do the things together
that both of us loved; good food, watching sport
and neither of us would ever mention the bear.
When they finally pack up my life
they’ll find a box in the attic of all that mattered:
love letters; degree certificates; faded photographs;
and a mechanical bear with its workings broke.
Adrian Slatcher lives in Manchester and writes poetry, fiction and music. He co-edits Some Roast Poet, a small poetry magazine and pamphlet publisher, and runs an occasional cultural zine (@Nb_Zine).