Keropee

I went up to the attic and brought down a stuffed toy from when I was a baby. It is Kero-Kero-Keropee, a lime green frog with bulging white eyes and a red thread mouth. I thought it would be appropriate for my puppy to play with because I remembered Keropee’s material being plush and silky, like the outer lining of my sleeping bag, which ROLO loves. 

Kero-Kero-Keropee was an instant hit. ROLO ran off with him clenched firmly in her jaws. Even though the toy is about the same size as her, her strong neck muscles and little legs can carry it over stacked up cushions and small mountains. 

A said, ‘Are you prepared for it to be destroyed?’

‘Yeah.’ She had already ripped apart the fabric of the eye.

‘Soon that fluff’s going to be everywhere and you’re going to have to pick it all up.’ The stuffing from the toy had been pulled out in cloudbursts, and I was trailing behind ROLO picking them up quickly before she swallowed any of it. It was a fun game.

When ROLO had calmed down and was licking herself on her (cardboard) dais, I got my sewing kit out and stitched back together Keropee’s erupted eyeball. So now the frog only has one eye and looks like a monster, but a happy one as the asymmetry really brings out his smile.

Some friends told me I was lucky to have a partner who’d allow me to keep hold of my soft toys from childhood. I agree. My mum carried these soft toys all the way from Japan when we emigrated to England, probably hundreds of them were boxed up and sent via shipping freight. By the time they reached the UK, I am not even sure I played with them anymore. But still she kept hold of them, through house moves and divorce, through my university days and as I started work. Now I have a house to call my own and what’s rightfully mine is bestowed upon me. My bagfuls of soft toys.

I gave away two full bin liners to local families on the app OLIO. I crammed a dozen of my favourites into an oversized blue leather bag, which looks like a magician’s prop. I still couldn’t part with another dozen more, so I wrapped them in plastic and put them all up in the loft. In the hidden area of the house, where I wouldn’t be able to see them or play with them, acting as a safety net in case I ever regress and need them again. 

Thank god for this puppy. I can breathe life back into these old toys and see them out there – being torn up and loved anew. Finally, being played with after decades of being forgotten. 

ROLO

Lying next to me is a very small dog. Her hind legs remind me of chicken wings, her paws are like those of teddy bears; made up of three lines of brown thread. Her ears are folded over her furry face like Toblerone triangles and when she sleeps her face looks like a seal pup. 

‘She looks just like a seal with her whiskers and wet nose.’ I say as I hold the tiny sleeping thing on my knees.

‘Are whale babies called pups as well?’

‘No. Whale calves. I guess they do look more like baby cows.’ I watch over her as she twitches and fidgets through her very active REM cycle. Suddenly she’s scrabbling like she’s chasing a scent over faraway fields. She was bred for hunting vermin and came from working dog stock from the Lake District. Her breed temperament is fearless, tenacious and stubborn; unlike normal dogs she was bred to work alone, so is quite happy left to her own devices. But as a puppy she clings to warmth and comfort, and cries if you go out of her line of sight for too long. Just like a baby.

In one week she has gained a third of her body weight. This is good news because she is filling out to be more like a terrier and less like a teddy bear. For the first week when there were rainstorms and sleet, she shivered at my feet in the garden as I forced her to go for a whizz. Now she associates the outdoors with something cold and terrible, when really it is her natural habitat. At first, she was too small to climb the wooden step up to the lawn, so A helpfully placed a brick for her to use as a step. The next day I found a cat had shat directly on top of the brick, so I had to hose it down and move it back to where it was less conspicuous. Today ROLO can bounce and clear the jump up to the lawn without the help of us or anything. To witness such an increase in ability is incredible.

I also think her eyesight, or could it be her spatial awareness – was pretty poor when she arrived at our house. She was likely afraid and felt less confident to roam (not like now one week on when she’s sniffing out every corner and boldly marching up to the front door) and so, her world was much smaller then, comprised of a crate, food bowl, and the treacherous outdoor toilet. 

As her world has expanded there is a door at the end of the kitchen leading into the utility room which has remained shut. Primarily because it contained mops and buckets and bleach and washing up liquids. But from behind that door comes the growls and gurgling of washers and toilet flushes, and the strange smell of paints and solvents, a bag of fresh compost and her all-time favourite toy: dustpan and brush. The tiny dog waits at the end of the kitchen, with her head cocked to one side contemplating the secret room. Wondering what mysteries are in there and what the monster is that spins and shudders all night long.

City poems

1.

There was a day of
Wasps,  I remember
As I walked to work
Buzzing in the bins

A Barboured old man
with a puppy dog in
his hands, the colour
Of burnt caramel

Today will be a good day
I can tell.



2.

The man with the blue tie
  glides by
The man with the pink tie
  points his finger
    at others
The man with the dry eyes
  looks tired
And, I with the wry
smile feel removed from it all



3.

The thing about all of
these things is
I cannot be bothered.

I wrap myself up in
Cotton wool and
Dive down under the covers

Sleep til light
Then do it all over again
Five days a week
Until the Sabbath

Forgetting all of what's gone
past as I dip my
Toes in to the future