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A slug came to my coffee shop
On a cold, cold day, and I on my own
behind the counter,
To feast there.
In the noisy bustle of the breakfast rush
I came from the kitchen with two toasted eggs
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he
was sliding along the cutlery.
He moved slowly among the knives and forks
in the tray
And trailed his silver slime so elegantly along
the stainless steel, over the edge
into the teaspoon compartment
And rested his head there in a grapefruit spoon,
And where a drop of juice had spilled amongst
the spoons
He slid across it with his smooth body,
Softly he let the juice soak into his smooth body,
on the underside,
Silently.
Someone was invading my cutlery tray
And I, in irritation, waiting.
He lifted his head from the teaspoons,
as slugs do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking slugs do,
And shimmied his slimy body, and mused a moment
And started heading for the tray all laid
with bowls of jam,
While in my hands two toasted eggs shivered
and congealed.
The voice of the health inspector said,
He must be killed
And every item on this counter washed in Dettol.
And voices in me said, if you don't do something
fast,
That woman sitting near the till will see the slug
and have hysterics.
But must I confess how I liked him,
How much I admired his slimy pattern
on the hideous cutlery,
Which looks like it was made by convicts out of
old tin,
And how I wished he would just speed things up
a bit
And get out of the shop, or at least
into the black bag in the kitchen?
Was it squeamishness, that I dared not kill him?
Was it tokenism, that I allowed one slug to drink
my juice
While calling in Rentokill for the flies
and roaches?
I felt so liberal.
And yet those voices:
"If you cared about your customers,
you would kill him"
And truly I was afraid, I can't afford to lose
business,
But even so, honoured still more
That he should drink the juices of my hospitality
When there are two much more famous coffee shops
in this street.
He moved towards the marmalade
And lifted his head dreamily, as one who
loves marmalade,
And shimmied his body like an ecstatic
marmalade-lover on the counter,
Seeming to smell paradise,
And moved around like a god, untasting,
towards the serviette box,
And slowly, very slowly, as if transcending
earthly desire,
Proceeded to draw his slow length beyond
the tray of jams
And climb among the serviettes to rest his soul.
And as he put his head down on the topmost
serviette,
And as he slowly drew his body behind him,
silvering the surface,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest
against his slime
Upon my last stock of expensive 2-ply serviettes,
Deliberately going into the serviette box and
soaking it through with slime,
Overcame me now his back was turned.
I looked round, I put down the toasted sandwiches,
I picked up a palony knife
And with a quick movement slid him onto the
blade and into the dirtbin.
I think it did not pierce him,
But suddenly he disappeared between the eggshells
and coffee grains
Under a dead lettuce leaf, making the bag
shudder slightly,
At which, in the hot, smoky kitchen, I stared
in fascination
And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how bourgeois, how selfish, what an
environmentally hostile act.
I despised myself and the voices of the accursed
health inspector and bank manager.
And I thought of the congealed egg sandwich
And I wished he would come back, my slug.
For he seemed to me like the supreme artist
Who would offer his silver trail
to a bowl of amber gold marmalade
Without asking for anything in return.
And so I missed my chance with one of the
aesthetes of nature.
And I have something to expiate:
Concern for profits.
---(Karen Press)--
Re-printed from her book "The Coffee Shop Poems"
(publisher: Snailpress, Plumstead, South Africa)
(inspired by "Snake" by D.H. Lawrence)
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