MY LITTLE FRIEND

My little friend is now axed down
trapped and jaw-twisted
by the brain-storms of entropy
bit by cruellest bit.

No more can she scurry about
and raid the chocolate box
throwing people’s mobiles
into the rubbish or washing machine
pulling conspiratorial faces in her chin-high mirror
meeting her other half, endlessly intrigued:
is this me? or she?
Well! if she’ll eat that salmon sandwich
so will I, eye to eye
competing/matching
synchronous indeed
two in one, inside out, face to face.

How come, when I visit her
she still chuckles and rolls her eyes
- while “they” had decreed
that she cannot recognize anyone anymore.

Alas! My petite honey-bee!
Tiny Thelwell pony!
Mischievous mini-person!
I would that I could spirit you off to the hobbit hills of your own
where all your small-folk kin
would welcome and celebrate you
their feisty minion and messenger
to the galumphing world outside
where you risked being demonized, ostracised, patronized
seen as a mistake, or some sort of burden
- despite the many clumsy endeavours to treasure you.

But what did you do
do you do
for all your teeny size and medi-labels
how many huge feeted and large bottomed, big-hearted folk
(your hand-maidens, serfs, PRs, chauffeurs, scribes
and reps of all sorts)
have you touched to the quick
your retinue of besotteds, over the years
greet you in shop doors, car parks, tea-shops, the pub and bank
their faces quickened, lit up, melted
by your royal, capricious presence:
-a bloke’s girls, a spook see-er, a maverick
who can out-wit, side-step
whatever anyone dares to presume, suppose, expect.
Today I will sit down, just here – and who can budge me?!
All daily concerns, bills, provisions, purposes
are reduced to their proper context
by the perverse and punky magic of you.

You pop out unbidden, from the magical zones
through the cracks between the realms
like an elfin card
essentially wild, paradoxical, untamed.