SCOTCH Poem by Ruth Sophia Padel

That fox you didn't know you had
In your front garden
Is craning his velour neck
From the hedge at two in the morning
To see what he doesn't often get a glimpse of,

That moonspark
On a glass of Scotch
He doesn't often smell

Being more at home with fish-heads
And the rinds of Emmental:
Identifying, to his fox-astonishment,
A tumbler doing the rounds of his own beat
About heart-height in the dark.