I know what you want

I know what you want

You want me to get a dog

Walk it in the morning

Last thing at night

Care for it when it throws up

From eating its own vomit.

Again.

A never-ending cycle.

When I can barely wash my own clothes

And the washing machine

Is on autopilot.

The dog would need hand rearing

Especially after it was hit by a car

Then it would die before me.

What is the point of sitting on

The floor

Crying

For a dog

When I can do that for myself.

Things seemed easier

When smoking was advertised

For its health benefits.

As the years have gone by

The smoke has become toxic

I can smell it in lifts.

How would that be if I had a Goldfish

Going around in circles

Gasping for breath.

The Water Shrew can smell

Beneath the surface

What a clever little animal.

It exhales air in bubbles

To capture the scent

Then re-inhales.

How did it know

To do that?

It has to eat every sixty minutes

Or it will die.

It has never listened to Beethoven’s

Ninth Symphony all the way through

It needs to take a food break

Before the choral movement.

Some may say it has a short attention span

But at least it knows its way around

The sewage system.

The Goldfish would find a way through

If it was flushed.

It might end up in Windermere

Where the native stock

Is being choked by overflow

From Victorian pipework.

If I had a dog

Perhaps I would smoke a pipe,

Wear carpet slippers

Carp on about the good old days

Forget to take the poop home

Become a public menace

End up in a black bag

With all the other rubbish

In a dirty lake

Decomposing.

Like Beethoven and half-dead fish

Waiting to exhale

All because you wanted me

To be a

Dog owner.