I thought you should know…


Only after you go to bed does my creativity come awake.
He begins to roam the house in search of words and phrases
Left over from the day, the ones unused while we discussed
How our days went and what we needed to buy at the grocery.

With you deeply asleep under covers in our bed,
He knows I’ve handed over free reign of the house as he sniffs
His curious muzzle along the windowsills and behind the trashcans,
In search of anything he can devour with his voracious appetite.

Once he finds some poor, forgotten piece of language
(Perhaps a lost prepositional phrase, an extra pronoun maybe)
There is no chance of getting it back slobber-free or un-torn,
As he always shakes his capture wildly in a very primal way.

But soon he will tire of his new (now lifeless) kill and
Majestically saunter into my office, head high, tail raised.
Standing beside my desk will he drop the dead language at my slippered feet,
Like a faithful lab bringing fowl to his master.

He has done his job, what he has been bred for.
As I pat his mangy head and scratch his ears
I reach to the floor to examine his latest conquest
And raising it up, I wipe off the slobber and slide it gingerly into my typewriter.