claudia jardine
My Sister (A Cancer) Generously Gives Her Dog to Our Parents
my sister has a nice name doesn’t mean I like it when my mum looks me in the eyes
and uses it on me years later my boss tells me that the best way to get a dog’s attention
is to call the other dog’s name provided you have two dogs the trick always works
and so on with sisters I am jealous of her star sign she is the crab and I am
the tampon but I am understanding understanding and graceful the young Libra
sun and moon that I am I work hard to make sure they get our names right at school
where hers is in gold on the good walls and my brother an Aquarius
plays timpani in the orchestra to make a statement
when I was little
I ransacked my sister’s sticker collection and made a collage
of her blue chip playground stocks on the legs of her full-sized single bed
which I was so envious of she didn’t hold it against me
when I was bigger but little still
I read her journal itemised all the things she hid under her enormous double bed
ratted her out for having Smirnoff Double Blacks in her t-shirt drawer
she didn’t hold that against me either but the thing
that makes my sister purse her lips is that I have never adopted a pet and then
left the country and now Frank has made a serious error
but good luck explaining that to him
he has stolen my mother’s best breast
and run off down the garden
the tiny mammal dream
after Fleur Adcock’s ‘The Pangolin’
All of my teeth are secure in my mouth,
I am wearing my clothes, and no one is dead,
and I am dressed for the occasion,
and I am not having sex somewhere I shouldn’t,
and no silhouette stands backlit in my doorway.
No, it is the tiny mammal dream again,
and I am rushing about the room/paddock/party
trying to keep something small and fast-breathing safe,
and I know the mouse/rabbit/guinea pig will hurt itself
or die unless I catch it, carefully, and hold it to my chest,
and the tiny mammal will always wriggle away,
and my heart sparks and says, ‘Do not crush it!
Do not hold it so tightly! You will hurt it!’
The tiny mammal leaps for the floor and disappears.
Why do I dream of such clumsy cruelty
fed by good intentions and a well-placed heart
when I could hold out a handful of grass or vegetables,
or parsley, for vitamin C, which guinea pigs,
like humans, cannot create on their own?
Why not parley with them, attend the Tiny Mammal House
biannual meeting and beg forgiveness for my dream-self?
Sit in the old stables at Staglands for an audience
with the buck bunny-rugging on a bale of hay?
Then, would the guilt I wake up with wriggle away?
Ah, they are just dreams, and I will understand
when I have rabbits of my own
not to take shades to heart. Yes, tiny mammals
like approaching a still candidate more than being chased
in the quest for affection, so I invite them
to run away, if they would not care for it.
Claudia Jardine (she/her) is a poet and musician based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington. Her work has been published in earlier issues of Starling, Mimicry, Sport, Landfall and at The Spinoff. Claudia has a collection of poems in Auckland University Press’ New Poets 7 alongside collections by Ria Masae and Rhys Feeney, available in stores from August 13.