This morning she got up
On the happy side of the bed,
Pulled back
The grey sky-curtains
And poked her head
Through the blue window
Of heaven,

Tadpoles huddled in a pond
afraid of the Carribean night,
its intense darkness.

Candleflies moving about,
lighting up and going out,
lighting up and going out.

This is the kingdom of the Water Bear.

To enter here, you have to shrink

and slow down, down. A day

is one tick of the clock, one blink

Tell me, Mama,
Where does the sun come from
in the morning?

Where does it go to
when it reaches the edge of the field?

I am a crocodile who lost my smile in the turbulent waters of the Nile.
When I was very small, trapped inside my crocodile egg, 

Which can be brushed out long and fine
to lie across a pillow
or bunched and scrunched into an angry
knot of rain before it is undone, 
when long hanks of it hang

Teach me the language of Cat;
the slow-motion blink, that crystal stare,
a tight-lipped purr and a wide-mouthed hiss.
Let me walk with a saunter, nose in the air.

The moon was married last night
and nobody saw,
dressed up in her ghostly dress
for the summer ball.

When I was born
I was a familiar,
a black cat, Satan’s favourite form.

Next life – I was in a room
you couldn’t swing a cat in.
Outside it was raining cats and dogs.

The seagulls think we live at the seaside:
the tower blocks are their cliffs;
they swoop for fish in the gutter
but are happy that it's last night's fried rice.