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Sport 42: 2014
Heartache All Around
Heartache All Around
There’s heartache all around today.
At the vet’s, on the noticeboard:
MAX = MUCH-LOVED PET
MISSING 3 DAYS
and a picture of a cat
under the arm
of a sleeping girl,
tucked in the crook between
her shoulder and the thumb
stuck in her mouth.
Oh, MAX
and oh, little sleeping girl,
all the cruelties of love and absence
have struck at once.
There will be no finding,
no reunion
and no comfortable slumber
for the next weeks or months.
This is how it is—
spectacle of attachment and loss,
all of us looking and calling
for nothing,
even though there are microchips
and rewards
and twelve small tabs
with a phone number printed on them
in fat felt tip.