The Picnic

I went to the park with Leonard and Brie
(the cheese, not the girl - I never really liked
the way she can be so obvious
and still miss the point)
in my picnic basket.
Leonard stopped at the
Boulangerie (mais oui) for baguettes
(a loaf of french bread from the
Shop n’ Save would have been fine).

We spread our blanket
and assumed our poetic positions,
as great fans of Omar Khayyàm
are wont to do when under a tree
with a loaf of bread,
and warm lemonade -
as the Boulangerie didn’t sell ice
(ahem… Shop n’ Save the day, Leonard).

And then, beside me, meowing in the wilderness
a whiskered wanderer
(tiny contradiction in evolution)
A huntress whose hereditary prowess now is
Hidden in a ball of fur, which
(despite its fierce stripes)
moved my hand against my will
to stroke its velvet cheek
and place it in my basket to keep it safe.

While Leonard, being in fine shape
for a homo sapiens, clambered like a simian
after a kite (that having tried to leave
the atmosphere on a gust of wind, but finding
itself tied to earth and a small boy by a length
of string, lodged itself aloft) in our tree
(it was ours after all,
our blanket beneath it was proof)
And waved like a red flag of caution.

Poor Leonard! his deed of derring-do done
sought to quench his thirst
(one gets quite thirsty
at high altitudes) with a red plastic cup
that he turned bottom up
(only to set a world record for the furthest anyone
has ever spat lemonade under a tree in a park
after having rescued a kite from a greedy tree)
and I had to explain that kittens and boxes are
well-acquainted so that the lemonade might not
be warm only because we were out of ice cubes.