Little brown streak if daring do

You to be so bold in broad vision

A scamperer as if misguided by radar

Interrupted in your quest to avoid us

And zero in on our detritus.

An inspiration to vacuum in our wake

Like Hansel and Gretel in terse reverse

Or slop the floors like a ship’s deck

With scented potions to recommend your abandoning

Of our humble abode.

You left traces of your presence even in your absence

Little pebbles scattered over benchtop, stove and floor

Even deposited as testament to your tenacity to invade

By exploring the inner-sanctum of tea towel rear-guarded

Kitchen drawer.

You have awoken the hygienic vigilante

That resides in us determined

Not to let slip such standards as betoken

Natural order and division of the special realm that abides

And permits your turn as provocateur of Felis catus

To cause commotion and restore order to the state of play.

We are humane in our respect for your little life and spared

Drastic measures that would poison our edicts for compassion

Refusing the easy way out instead erring on the side to encourage

In no uncertain frequency plugged in to implore

That you show yourself out.

Then again, suggestion has its limits and upon our own advice to the fore

We found the final solution: The Big Cheese – “welfare friendly control”

After all we aim to please by our instinctive, instructive hospitality.

Several failed attempts using peanut butter could not prompt you whence

You came to get the better of our reasonable alternative to suffering, until

We replaced the recommended agent of compulsion with casein

To please the time honoured tradition of cliché ridden extremes.

And still you unnerved us with your agility and taunting

Stealing the temptation right out from under your very own nose(s)

Which supposes the question: what will it take to outsmart

Your furtive little raids under the cover of darkness?

M e a s l y T e n a c i t y

And so it came to pass that you would be given leave

Not one but two consecutive winter’s morn in readiness for our own

Departure into the normal of two evils – urgent predictability

As opposed to the ultimate flagrancy – to ignore.

Our coffee interrupted by your scratching for release

From your little plastic capsules transported out back in dim dawn

To surrender our temporary power and hold over you in mercy

As in a flash you took your chance and made a fair escape

Over leaf matter and grass into the great unknown

The crevice between shed and fence

Disappeared and not reborn via some other force of intervention.

Michael Haward