I’m writing too,

Poems better

Than you can do?

K: Is that a fact?

We’ll see about that.

I must be cracked

To put up with a cat

That lies there dribbling

And trying to bite a

Bit off the ribbon

Of my typewriter.

B: I have to use

My tongue to say

The words I want,

Like you. OK?

K: Maybe so,

But I don’t see how.

All you know

To speak’s miaow.

B: Different miaows.

Sometimes I yell them,

Sometimes whisper:

It’s the way I tell them.

K: You think you’re a better

Poet than me?

B: So that’s what you’re

Supposed to be!

The Magic Box

I will put in the box

the swish of a silk sari on a summer night,

fire from the nostrils of a Chinese dragon,

the tip of a tongue touching a tooth.

I will put in the box

a snowman with a rumbling belly,

a sip of the bluest water from Lake Lucerne,

a leaping spark from an electric fish.

I will put in the box

three violet wishes spoken in Gujarati,

the last joke of an ancient uncle

and the first smile of a baby.

I will put in the box

a fifth season and a black sun,

a cowboy on a broomstick

and a witch on a white horse.

My box is fashioned from ice and gold and steel,

with stars on the lid and secrets in the corners.

Its hinges are the toe joints

of dinosaurs.

I shall surf in my box

on the great high-rolling breakers of the wild Atlantic,

then wash ashore on a yellow beach

the colour of the sun.