I Eat Poetry

No Holes Without Bits
by Pat Ingoldsby

Should you ever go into Bartholomew Pringle’s Emporium
to get your ears pierced
be sure to ask for the bits back when he is finished.
Say –
“Bartholomew Pringle – can I have the bits back please?”
He will tell you that there are none.
He will swear it to you.
He will say
- “Bits? What bits?
I don’t know what bits you are talking about?”
Do not take any of his nonsense.
Insist.
Say
- “Bartholomew Pringle. I am not a fool. Don’t lie to me.
You have just made little holes in my ears.
Of course there are bits. Little bits of me. They are mine.
Hand them over this minute
or you will force me to take the hedge clippers to you.”

Otherwise he will put them into a tin box with all the others
- the ones he is saving to build a huge big gigantic ear
capable of listening to kittens
whispering secrets to one another
in the wardrobe after dark
when they think that nobody can hear them.

Get your bits back. Save the kittens.