Man and Ferret
[Broadway, Capitol Hill, Seattle]
There’s a quiet patch
on our main drag
beyond the shops,
before the lively stretch
(would-be boho
Pine Street, no less) -
that funeral home,
long, blank and bland,
facing college buildings
with tall windows, few doors
and wide brick ledges
sloping sidewalk-wards
to deter our homeless
from sheltering there
in the lee of the college.
Here of a winter
Sunday afternoon,
as the farmers’ market
stalls shut forlornly down,
watch for the ferret man -
he has his eye out for you,
as his ferret darts keenly
to and fro, to and fro
along the ledge slope.
Would you like to pet him?
he’s totally gentle -
and he’s already fed.
I won’t hold him
(I say), just touch
that soft fur. I reach
behind his ratty head.
Yes, soft. Does he smell?
Not much. With me
he lives a clean life.
My home country,
I tell him, has a few
as pets, and more
as pests. Stoats too.
Small native creatures
are at risk from both.
Safer to be on islands
off the mainland,
those natives - and
the pesky predators swim!
Don’t they race through
rabbit warrens when
uncaged, for the poacher’s
winter rabbit stew?
Would I like one like him
to take home?
I prevaricate.
My wife seeing him
might have a fit.
He’s better provided
with a single man
whose attention
is undivided.
I see man and ferret
in shared intimacy
growing more alike.
I could ask her,
does she want a mouser?
Ferrets, I suppose, are
nature’s answer
to smellier pests?
Since he moved in
no-one, I bet, has smelled
anything but ferret.
Whether pest-free
or not, this may well be
its main merit.
I smell of dog, so does my flat.
We share the same air.
My wife greets me as we meet
with a suspicious sniff:
where has your hand just been?
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