The Boscombe Pekinese by Brian McClorry, SJ

By Brian McClorry, SJ ©

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'...there will always be that secret elsewhere..' - Penelope Lively, 'City of the Mind'

Skipping rope shape in pastel white,

Etched in face and tail

By the scent of whatever quivers -

At the end of a lead, a ferret

Stalks the road,

Checks the thin red leather strip,

Leans towards its life,

Paw raised like a fly swat,

Calls for silence to conjure

The secret elsewhere

Where food is live to the tooth

And follies are forgone

There in that cathedral

Whose introibo strikes

Yes I will, yes I will go

From the sea roads in Boscombe

To the shriek inside the earth,

Pray with the Medes and the Persians,

Cultivate my fur -

And all the time we thought

It was a Pekinese.