The Pack.(Poem)

 
THE PACK 
 
   A ring-tailed possum, disease-riddled 
   and dazed in the light, had fallen from a tree 
   onto the lawn, where it crouched in the middle 
   of the day, looking, or so it seemed to me, 
 
   not unlike a certain history professor, 
   with those bulbous bespectacled eyes, nose 
   that quivered in a pink round point, an untidy dresser, 
   but harmless on the whole, ignored by the crows 
 
   and scholarly pigeons at work in the camellia hedge. 
   Then our amiable, sleep-soaked 
   golden retriever cross, spread over the edge 
   of his kennel with all four feet in the air, woke 
 
   up to the scent of the alien creature, 
   and began to bark as wildly 
   as he might have at the threat of an armed 
      intruder; 
   the baying outcry summoned the mildly 
 
   curious rottweiler sprawled across our 
      neighbours' 
   porch, and the two large dogs set upon 
   the possum in a pack of two. Using their paws 
   to bat the helpless ring-tail over ...