Tuesdays she is a cat
Sadly it never happens Fridays;
there would be more chance of fish.
Even in this she is fated
to be left wanting.
No loved one to present mouse heads to,
she crunches the lot herself –
calcium beneficial to ageing bones,
stalks the village, aloof,
darting away from human attention,
tail up, claws ready.
She is still very much herself.
Late afternoons, stretched in a sunspot
behind an abandoned bungalow,
she licks her paws, draws them back
soft over her skull to wash silken ears.
Dawn Wednesday always the end of it,
so night is to be savoured,
green eyes watchful for the shop’s delivery of milk.
Holly Magill’s poetry has appeared in numerous magazines, including The Interpreter’s House, Bare Fiction, and Under The Radar, and anthologies –Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches Press) and #MeToo: A Women’s Poetry Anthology (Fair Acre Press). She co-edits Atrium – www.atriumpoetry.com. Her debut pamphlet, The Becoming of Lady Flambé, is available from Indigo Dreams Publishing: http://www.indigodreams.co.uk/