Poetry in Practice in Public

Poetry in Practice in Public – It’s Getting Better

RUB A DUB DUB, TWO CATS IN A TUB

I was sleeping in bed with the radio on,
My dreams darting from nightmares to fear,
When a sound much scarier entered my head,
And it turned out to be sounding right here.

I ran here and there in search of the sound,
Half awake, half unconscious with sleep,
As it usually happens in such cases, of course.
It was then that I heard a small peep!

I rushed to the tub, and there they were,
My two black cats, and in between,
A very small mouse, doing his best,
Jumping up and down, could be seen!

Rub a Dub Dub, two cats in the tub
With a poor frightened mouse between them.
Forward and back, like a Nascar track.
Oh, woe! If I hadn’t seen them!

So, girding my loins (do women do that?)
And stiffing my lip, I began intervening.
I grabbed each struggling cat in my hands.
(They knew that my gestures had meaning!)

Catching the cats, one after the other,
Away both went to a far distant room,
And I went in search of my have-a-heart trap,
Stored for when such emergencies loom.

I gently placed the trap in the tub
To rescue the scared little mouse.
It ran right in, and peeped in thanks,
Then I took it out of the house.

It’s as safe as it can be in the wild.
Tonight I’ll sleep when I lay down my head.
My cats can only watch through the screen,
A dear creature still alive and not dead.