Sunday 6 March 2011

FATE PLAYING

How many times had I told you?
Pigs are no-hopers in the desert.
Camels maybe.
Even if I had hung a compass round your pink neck
You would never have allowed for magnetic variation.
As for maps, a sheet of strong, brown, wrapping paper
Is about it round here.
Telamons, caves and saints strictly not marked,
Just a few jebels maa arif and wadis.

You wanted to be the camel
That we do not possess.
Pig-headed and pathetic, you had to see for yourself.
When I found you,
Molten by the sun,
You were more pork than pig.
I was lucky to find you not yet crackling,
Or was it fate
Playing as in the title?
You were like a lost and found golf-ball,
Outwardly baked,
Rubbery inside, tense and squashed.
God! how you squealed!
You were a packet of emotions,
A muesli mix.
Gratitude that I had found you made you cling to me
With your pink, sand-in-the-toes trotters.
Your despair clinging to my face like custard pie.
No longer a wannabee camel, just a pathetic female squeaker,
Your love was magnified many times,
At least.
I had fetched the poke.
I bore you cavewards while beneath my feet
The desert quaked.

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