A pet

A PET

We haven’t got the room dear
We just don’t have the space
You could not keep it here love
It’ll have to go some other place.

It won’t want to be in the garden
It needs some room to run
And how will you ever take care of it?
The work would never be done

It won’t eat beans like you ,dear
It’s food is quite different from ours
What will it do when you’re at school?
It’ll be lonely for hours and hours.

Where will you put it at night
when it needs to go to bed?
The garage is for your Dad’s car
And, no, we can’t cut a hole for it’s head!

It will need lots of shoes, and a blanket
and a coat in the Winter, too.
Yes, I know yours are all too small now
but, sweetheart, they just wont do.

And what about cleaning up after it?
That’s something I really dread
Yes, I know that Daddy could use some
on his favourite flowerbed

But what will the neighbours say?
They will think we’ve opened a zoo.
It’s kind you are going to let them
all come and play with it, too.

This really has got out of order
and it’s all my fault of course
When I talked about getting a pet,
I meant a rabbit, or fish, not a horse!

(Dedicated to Darcy, with love.)

Did you guess what type of pet the child wanted? Clearly the child had solutions to every problem raised by the parent. Can you list 4 of them? Using those examples, write how you think the child had worded their side of the argument (it does not have to be a poem, just the sentences you think the child would use). Write this in Member home.

Check further poems in the Archive