Terrier Gap Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

He was out cold
and smiled,
parched lips
apart, and two
lone teeth,
stained a
tobacco brown,
stood guard,
but not entirely
too straight.

A ragged sheet of
silver batts,
grade three,
was draped
on top
and rustled
in the breeze.
A pair of shoes,
spares with no laces,
were sprouting
French baguettes,
and shielding
the vermouth
from prying eyes.

He snored,
so did the terrier,
tied to his ankle,
stretched just like
his master,
on his back.
He shook
and trembled
intermittently,
perhaps he was
in hot pursuit
of better meals
and better times.

And neither dog
nor man
suspected
that their world
would crumble,
when grubby youngsters
set alight the
two and all their gear.

The man was taken,
by ambulance to
Good Samaritan,
on Shatto Street,
where he arrived
in poor condition
and with a smell.

They fixed him up,
regrew his skin,
of which one third
had burned
and he awoke,
from the kind land
of Demerol to ask
where 'Gaps' had gone.

Nobody knew
about a dog,
a vagrant terrier,
and no one did expect
that it would make
him cry.

All shaken, nurse Maria
walked alone,
her shift had ended
at eleven.

She stumbled
at the exit, fell
quite hard and was
returned into the
hospital at once.
They locked both doors
in the position of
wide open,
which did not go
unnoticed by the dog.

And minutes later
he was stretched out
on the bed,
Ward five, room ten,
just like his master,
who was sleeping,
with a tear stained face.
They snored in concert,
one a little louder,
the other one had
something up his sleeve.

He figured, in the twilight
of his slumber,
that he would lick his
master's face
just to make sure
that nothing
had happened
to the gaps.
Well, after all
he had been
baptised in
in their honour.