By Bern Butler
The wooden-framed sofa is on its back.
Its short, stiff legs go straight-up thick.
It’s like a dead baby-grey elephant.
I’m going to shoe its jagged feet
which scratch the wooden floor.
(I have asked you, for the last
six weeks – or more.)
I’m a lonely cobbler, resentful farrier,
on the floor with my assorted tools:
a cornflake box, a scissors,
a tube of glue, some felt – sourced
from the hardware last Tuesday.
Four soft slippers wait in line.
I pick one up, to test the size and that’s
when you, (oh fearless lamb), amble in
say, Here. Let me do that, for you dear.
Before I think, anger rises, swift-quick
righteous, as Jesus in the temple.
I want to swerve a swipe at you
as you seize the glue. I want to box
your stupid ears, crack a sharp
and sudden head-butt-smack,
right between your dull and baffled eyes.
But you’re so dumb, you’d never guess why!
So, I run to the garden,
where I hotly cry
swear at simple-you,
then at my stupid self
and God Comedian who seems,
to please himself by wryly churning out,
besides our tiny, titanic bouts –
wider mysteries: wet-branched trees,
dripping green blackberries, a frightened
blackbird’s startled cry, and quickly then,
four damp-grey swans flapping across
the why of a laughably beautiful sky.