Once, when she was very small, a dream woke me.
Dawn, iron cages, a tiger and the eager,
little zoo keeper reaching out to pat it…
She slept soundly, her menagerie too:
balding princess, purblind bear, Mummy –
though not Daddy now nor, in the garden, Fido.
Oozing kapok, hair eroded by
loving, his one eye tarnished but keen like
small expectations, he kept faith by the swing.
Love’s unreason maintained such shabbiness –
and left him out all night. Barefooted,
I fetched him in by the handle. How love’s
confusion aches the heart!
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By David Selzer