Poem: "Pet Projects"

This poem came out of the September 6, 2011 Poetry Fishbowl.  It was inspired by prompts from thesilentpoet, marina_bonomi, my_partner_doug, jenny_evergreen, and kelkyag.  It was sponsored by marina_bonomi.  Lots of people wanted to explore the idea of pets in Monster House!  You can read the other poems in this series on the Serial Poetry page.

We have a full house
here on Hollow Oak Drive,
me and my wife,
our daughter and our son ...
and so forth.

The little old lady ghost,
the monsters under-the-bed and in-the-closet,
the bogeyman and the lurking shadow,
even the troll in the basement --
they're housemates, more or less;
people, if somewhat peculiar ones.

The coblynau come and go
through the vents,
living in a world of their own.

The gargoyles on the roof
are like barn cats:
ever-present but aloof, not very cuddly,
good for eliminating vermin.

The gremlins generally are  vermin,
chewing things open or taking things apart,
but the seeing-eye gremlin is just like a guide dog.

The radiator dragon could be considered a pet,
since it isn't very smart and seems to
benefit the heating system by ambient magic
rather than by mechanical aid.
Like the gargoyles, though,
it's not something to snuggle
unless you want an instant sunburn.

So when my daughter wanted a pet,
it seemed like a reasonable request;
surely we've seen stranger things.
After I had to veto the boa constrictor
and the salamanders
I should have known better.

The cat should have worked.
Cats can see everything,
so ought to fit right in.
Unfortunately the cat who saw everything
never got used to anything.
He hissed at the little old lady ghost
and growled at the lurking shadow
and tried to sharpen his claws
on the monsters under-the-bed and in-the-closet.
One night someone left the door open
and the cat moved next door and never returned.

The ferret was perhaps a poor idea,
but I didn't know that until it was too late.
She chased the coblynau through the vents
while they and the bogeyman tried to nail her with hammers,
and she climbed all over the monsters until they refused
to go anywhere near the beds or  the closets.
So we had to give the ferret away.

The goldfish at least had its own habitat,
but ultimately fell prey to a late-night toast
between the bogeyman and the lurking shadow.
Don't ask.  I didn't.

Finally I just bought a lava lamp
in the traditional teardrop style with yellow fluid and red wax,
and told my daughter to pretend it was an alien aquarium.
She liked it.  She sat in front of it for hours,
the purple eye of her necklace focused on the shifting blobs.

My wife bought another one, in a modern style,
a little cylinder filled with vivid blue fluid and pale creamy wax.
Our daughter liked that one too,
saying the probabilities were different.

Then she asked for a new one
as a birthday present,
and her grandmother showed up
with one so big it stood on the floor, a huge tall tube
full of red-violet fluid and eerie yellow-green wax.
It clashed with everything, but our daughter didn't care.
She put it in her room and watched it, grinning.

I couldn't for the life of me imagine
what she found so mesmerizing about wax blobs
until I peeked in there
and one of them winked  at me.