DEAD DOG

In a unit for the mentally infirm I offer you my love in the form of a dog so lifelike you expect its tail to wag or its soft muzzle to crinkle into smiles. It’s a collie – a she, a Daisy-dog to give comfort when your night-walls are soughed by the demented and God has forgotten the numbered password at your door.

I have seen the woman with her baby many times, its doll head bobbing on her ribs, the lullaby that sings upon her tongue a comfort only to the bogus child immured within those skinned and skinny limbs. She walks the ward oblivious to all but what contentment comes before the longer shreds of darkness that will swallow up her memory whole.

So, I tender you my good intent –this spurious gift I think will link an alien present with the familiar past but even then, with all that has been lost to you, you recognise its falsity. ‘That’s a dead dog,’ you say, the words raged from that part of you still holding on and holding on.