More Quack Quack Poem by Diana van den Berg

It is getting a bit old hat
and old hats don’t sit well
on a quacking duck.

Fifth metal theft this year,
and eight days after the fourth one,
this time the immovable part
of one of my internal garden gates
twice the width of the gate
and that keeps in my dog and cat
when they are outside.

My dog told me most insistently
that somebody
was on the property
and the security company
raced some kilometres around
to get to the other side of the railway line,
found the perpetrator, who dropped my gate
and his burglaring bag and ran
and although I got my gate back,
though damaged and unusable
until I can get it fixed,

sadly, the perpetrator got away
and I spent a large chunk of the morning
with the security company
and a large chunk of the afternoon
giving my statement to the police
(and hopefully will still
spend time with the gate repairman
who promised to get here
late afternoon)
and got next to no work done
for my deadline tomorrow.