I’m sleeping in the spare room:
it’s an odd room,
like a spare tyre I keep
in the boot of my house.
The kitchen is underneath
the window
and the next door neighbour’s cat
trampolines on the rooftop
throughout the night.
‘Boomf, boomf, boomf' it goes
as the cat passes my backyard
on its way home.
It times it perfectly
to the metronome of my falling
asleep, and then
‘boomf, boomf, boomf’ startles
with a premature alarm,
I shake the duvet and contemplate
a prescription,
a pill for the pillow.

In my sleepless state,
I fantasise about killing
the cat.
I wonder what chemical
I could coat the rooftop with
to repel the beast,
then picture the unpleasantness
of a feline corpse
outside my backdoor
and the neighbour looking over
the wall with a face of accusation.
I imagine climbing that wall
and slipping poison into
its food tray.
I kill from a distance,
the conclusion delayed
in order to prepare an alibi:
no, officer,
I was at the shops at the time,
look, here’s my receipt.

The cat is alive,
I got that prescription;
now the cat only dies
when I sleep.

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