Sniffer’s Vacation (1)
By:
August 12, 2010
HiLobrow won’t be publishing any installments of James Parker’s novel The Ballad of Cocky the Fox this month. Nor will we, this month, publish new issues of The Sniffer, Patrick Cates’ Cocky-related newsletter. Like Cocky, Parker and Cates are British; in August, they aestivate.
Cocky will return on September 2. The Sniffer will return on September 9. Until then, here’s a poem by James Parker.
how champion the rabbit feels about cocky
In my back half, strength: a soft powerhouse.
In my front half, tension:
my paws like the hands of a child
gripping the top of a wall, peeping over.
And in my middle, a single syllable of love
spoken again, and again, with the pulse.
Rolling in every morning,
smelling of cuckoo juice,
or of other foxes,
he returns to me.
Gruff, sometimes; cheerful, other times.
Never cruel, and always with the good nosh.
Out there bravely all night
amid the big nothings,
the big nowheres,
and then back to me, protective.
Whatever he does is right.
Friends, we are, great friends,
seeking each for each the same sweet ends.
No change in him could test the loyalty
of brainless long-eared me.