The missing Ark
Even when we lived in the campervan
she still kept the animals.
Her favourite chameleon kept going missing. Sometimes
she’d find him wrapped around the steering wheel, other times in my pocket.
Macaws mate for life so they would scold us when we argued
though I knew she secretly fed them treats to take her side.
When I felt angry at her I would cage the lizards.
Of course, we did not have cages so I used jars and drawers.
During the rain the hedgehogs would curl in our shoes
so we’d spend hours in bed, careful not to crush the glow worms.
At night the jaguars roared so wildly we could never park
in one place for too long so as not to annoy the neighbours.
If she wanted to signal that she was aroused,
she would pretend to be bitten by a tiger.
We used the whales echo location more than GPS
as it would direct us to deeper places.
When the van broke down we knew it was the nests
of kingfishers in the engine.
She hoped our playful acts of remembrance
were rescuing them from extinction.
Yet it was them saving us from forgetting
the interrelation.