Luna And The Fourteen Shrews Poem by Sylvia Frances Chan

a story poem from a while ago

it is of course again about Luna,
the cat from the neighbourhood (1.5 km away from us)
I don't remember the exact date and time,
the total number of mice she brought to our terrace is fourteen fourteen shrews, fourteen fragile mice, but adult mice,
caught not in one day, of course,
spread over several days,

they say Luna considers me her boss, but I don't need mice!
Did she catch them one by one in the farmer's field?
I don't know until now.

She then only slept on our terrace, not in our house,
but almost every day she came with a mouse,
with a dead mouse on our patio,
it looks like it smiles or grins at us,
it's called a shrew I think,
I'm not sure, but at least not a rat,
that dear Luna could be so cruel, I hadn't known,

as long as the mouse is not dead yet,
it will always get a thump from Luna.
At that time it was almost every day
that I had to take the victim to the municipal waste,
well, I had to, because I didn't want that in my own container,

I first took off my work gloves,
wrapped the victim in a plastic bag
and another bag over that and
then I went by car to the municipal container,

I've never studied cats, why don't they eat their victim?
I did the same thing fourteen times,
Luna hadn't done it every day,
but I had taken fourteen in total.
I'm sure Luna was lurking on the farm
trying to make it clear to me that she considers me her boss.
After fourteen shrews, nothing more came.
A deep sigh of relief

©Sylvia Frances Chan - All Rights Reserved
First of July 2023