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Dec 2019
OUR 'ARRY

He nonchalantly
ambled in from

the garden
on Christmas Eve's eve.

Curled up by the fire
into a ball and then

promptly fell asleep
like a Christmas present

waiting for the great
day to happen.

And so, what we had only seen
in an illustration from a Ladybird book

became the real
living thing.

A hedgehog of
our own

at once christened
'Arry...our 'Arry!

We oohed and ahhhed
so loudly we

awoke him
with a start.

And with that his fleas
left him en masse

swarming like a Biblical
plague

until he shrank
to half his size.

I screamed.
Me Ma screamed.

The dog barked nervously.
The cat yawned "Like...yeah...so what?"

And so without much ado
our 'Arry was returned

to the wild from whence
he came

bundled into a Kellogg's Cornflakes box
the cornflakes dumped upon the table top.

The horror movie of his fleas
fleeing

still playing in my head
over fifty years later.

Our 'Arry gone back
into the dark.
***

Yet another poem pulled from my subconsciousness by the machinations of that Lisa Kelly of the Torriano Meeting House writing workshop who by the simple means of pulling a ******* with a hedgehog with a hat delivering a Christmas present plunged me into this memory of days gone by in the long ago of being a child. Half of our 'Arry's body weight being fleas abandoning the body of their host for the warmth of an Irish turf fire still haunts me.
Donall Dempsey
Written by
Donall Dempsey  Guildford
(Guildford)   
125
   Bogdan Dragos
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