Anne Dunford, our recent reviewer of Henry Mance’s How To Love Animals In A Human-Shaped World, has been in touch with us to tell Orlando about the cat in her life. 

Anne says:

Orlando will understand how cats can achieve more than we humans can at times, so he’ll understand what this poem is about!

If I were a cat

I could make you smile
more often.
 
I wouldn’t
say the wrong things
 
my fur would soothe,
be therapeutic.
 
My purr would
make you happy
 
you’d understand
my simple needs.
 
As it is,
being human,
things are different.

Mango, another ginger Tom, features alongside this poem in the middle of the book From the Mountains to the Sea  (a book of my poems and photographs taken by my husband Les) but here’s a different photo of him enjoying a drink ‘on tap’.

Best wishes

Anne