My heart was a dog curled

around itself in the cold, far corner

of a kennel & gnawing

at the mange on its left back leg in the large

& flood-lit rehoming centre

full of other strays nobody’d ever wanted, or

ones they’d tried to take care of

but couldn’t find time, or

whose owners had died

& left them to whine

at the family, three kids &

a tired parent holding

the smallest one’s scooter, the other

parent at work, slinking in

from the storm-dashed weather

to search the thin cages for a pet.

 

 

Pronounced Koi No Yokan, 恋の予感 is a Japanese phrase translatable as

‘a premonition of inevitable future love’