My friend is a celebrated dog whisperer by Katy Mack

so when he speaks, I tend to listen –

his words delivered at a pitch so low

they reach a hum almost imperceptible to the human ear,

or so he tells me. When he passes by

all the animals on our street go wild:

goldfish tap at the sides of their glass tanks,

babies gurgle and shift in their cots,

hamsters scurry, double-time, in their tiny plastic wheels

as we rise, restless, from our beds

and follow him through the iron gates to the common.

A neighbour claimed she saw him, once,

behind a tree in the car park of The Moon Under Water Pub,

stuffing chicken-flavoured Dreamies into his jacket pockets

when no one was watching.

But none of us speak to her anymore –

not since she went quiet some months ago

on her way to work, descending into the mouth

of that long escalator at Angel,

taking a turn by the coffee stand.

It’s like when a glitch in the system

directed the tube to the abandoned station –

the passengers alighting onto an unswept platform,

their footsteps trudging through dimly lit tunnels.

Some people say they’re still down there,

even now, you can hear their voices – a faint murmur

from beneath the paving stones

under the noise of traffic.

___________

Katy Mack’s work has appeared in The Poetry Review, Ambit, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Poem International, and Perverse. Her pamphlet, First, I turn off the light, came out with Broken Sleep Books last year.