Brush-tailed landlords
In Australia, we shared our house with possums
who lived in the space above the ceiling.
They had been there long before we moved in
and likely regarded us as their tenants.
We kept daylight hours that didn’t bother them
and paid the rent by planting fruit trees
that the possums raided every night.
Our orange cats had not signed the lease, though,
and defended their territory,
which led to noisy late-night battles
punctuated by thumps, howls and yowls
that I used to lie awake and listen to;
the two sides were about the same size,
with perfect night vision, claws and fangs.
The descendants of the first landlords
are still there today, fighting to cling on
to a corner of what was once all theirs.
S.C. Flynn was born in Australia of Irish origin and now lives in Dublin. His poetry has recently been published in Abridged, SurVision, Beir Bua, The Waxed Lemon and Neuro Logical.