Capricorn’s Wonderful Habit Poem by Margaret Alice

When I feel ill, I look for comforting things,
I grab my astrology book and reassure myself
on the sensitivity and sweetness of my Virgo
friend, and the grumpiness and undercover
need for flattery of my Capricorn boss, I’m
Cancer myself – speaking astrogenetically –

And must be quite a trial to my nervous Virgo
travelling companion, he has a first-aid kit
stashed away, taking up all the space on the
boat in which we drift downstream; leaving
very little place for my honeycakes and tea –
while stubborn Capricorn has sworn never

To support my hare-brained scheme of writing
a dream into infinity, I send messages to him
on paper, folded as aeroplanes; all the while
communicating intermittently by owl-post
with my Virgo friend when he goes away and
I’m alone resting on the shore, looking through

Recipe books for making pies and baking cakes,
I seldom get around to try any of those, my Scorpio
friend comes around and quite impatiently bakes
an enormous pie that leaves very little room for
anyone else, I’m quite glad he’s so happily occupied,
it leaves me time to retreat within myself

Making up stories concerning mermaids and fairy
queens, based on the pictures supplied in Arthur
Mee’s Encyclopedia – but feeling ill today; I read
about Capricorn’s wonderful habit of helping a
friend in need whenever he’s called upon, I took
my headache to bed and dreamt of help…