<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Profuse\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I have nothing to say about what happened. It\u2019s been dealtwith. I\u2019ve issued my apologies. Things didn\u2019t turn out like I wanted: it was an accident, of course it was; the fish was being handled well. Esme gave me the money for the herring, she said to buy it for Bart. But, looking back, I should have been more fastidious, especially given the number of bags. More breathing, less speed. I must start meditating, perhaps that would induce better results? The shopping should have been less hurried. My mother was about to arrive. The house wasn\u2019t clean. The duvet needed attention. I said I found the whole thing distressing. The herring landed in the paint, whereupon the kitten got involved. I was distracted. My neighbour was complaining about the mewing. It\u2019s surprising how much noise a kitten can come up with. I know how upset Esme is. She\u2019s made that very clear. I saw the email. I hope it wasn\u2019t circulated. The kitten was a pedigree. Abyssinian. Spectacular ears. I should have put the lid on the paint. I\u2019d been decorating that morning. Bit late for mother. Atomic tangerine. Perhaps the kitten found it alluring. Do cats respond to colour? They do watch television from time to time, I\u2019ve been informed. Yes, he got paint on his whiskers. Thin rods with orange on. Clearly, if I\u2019d been more careful, that would not have happened, you simply cannot let a pedigree cat near good quality paint. The herring fell in the pot, but I didn\u2019t realise this until later. Esme has been, up until now, a good boss. She was very kind when I was off work, after Mother\u2019s last visit, and even baked a cake, which was a little dry, but I appreciated the gesture. The kitten ate the herring, and the paint, then put paint marks on the floor, before choking, and vomiting, and one thing led to another. His body. The little pink mouth. Some sharp and tiny teeth. It was all most unfortunate. Esme was due to arrive three hours later. I know she\u2019s off work now. I contributed to the flowers. I\u2019ve seen the emails. I\u2019ve issued my apologies. I\u2019m making enquiries about that sort of cat. There\u2019s somebody in Oxfordshire, apparently. The annual review is on Wednesday. Last year it went well. I haven\u2019t spoken to Mother lately. I am beside myself. I did get rid of the smell. Yes, Bartholomew was a corker. The hall looks lovely. I\u2019m so very sorry.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Miles Salter<\/strong> resides in York, and his creative output since 2003 has included music, poetry, event management and\u00a0journalism. He likes Marmite, Philip Larkin and early Bruce Springsteen albums. He has lots of ambitions, usually\u00a0involving microphones. Profuse\u00a0 I have nothing to say about what happened. It\u2019s been dealtwith. I\u2019ve issued my apologies. Things didn\u2019t turn out like I wanted: it was an accident, of course it was; the fish was being handled well. Esme gave me the money for the herring, she said to buy it for Bart. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[138,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2019-poetry-picks","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20289"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20499,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20289\/revisions\/20499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}