Bedmates

by by Patrick Campbell
(Alicante, Spain)

BEDMATES

by Patrick Campbell


The biped and the quadruped
with whom I nightly share my bed
display a curious rapport
as they whistle, snort and snore.
In unison they play sonati
on their breathing apparati,
as though a Bach or Berlioz
had written works for throat and nose.
It pleases me, this dialogue,
but which is wife and which is dog?

When silence reigns again, I think
about the strange primeval link
that makes a spaniel and a dame
sound fundamentally the same.
By day of course they're chalk and cheese;
he only comes up to her knees
and has a rather hairier chest
than that with which my wife is blessed.

But who, dear spaniel, can deny
that we're of one blood, you and I?
for aren't our organs, limbs and faces,
situated in like places?
But so they are in sheep and cow,
in pig and deer. I wonder how
you, dear one, have escaped their fates
of ending up on dinner plates.