From the recording Riversdale
A darkly comic poem in which childhood certainty collides with the evasive and often inexplicable world of adults. Through eccentric characters, suspicion and absurd humour, a simple disappearance becomes an exploration of how imagination fills the spaces where truth refuses to settle.
Lyrics
Moll
Lucky was a black cat. Nine lives lost. Not so lucky.
In three she stayed; in three she played; in three she strayed.
I walked on crackling leaves,
hollering, LUCKY,
above the drumming of woodpeckers,
calling her name into the woods.
Like a boomerang, it came back,
but without Lucky.
Mum said,
We should have buttered her paw.
See Moll, the cat lady,
in the Irish cottages by the swimming pool.
Moll has a half-door.
It keeps the cats in
and the taxman out.
I peered into the darkness.
Twenty-five pairs of green and amber eyes
opened and closed
like a camera lens.
She appeared from nowhere,
wearing a coat identical to Columbo’s.
Have you seen Lucky? I asked.
NO, she said,
reserving her conversation for the cats.
The next day I saw her in town,
walking with a crook,
carrying empty bags
inside empty bags,
trailed by dog-hating disciples.
And one of them was a black cat.
Have you seen Lucky? I asked.
Moll’s eyes opened like sunflowers.
NO, she said.
SOME GO AWAY TO DIE.