‘How much is that jug in the window,
the one in the shape of a cow?’ said a bull
in a china shop to the lady behind the counter.
Unbeknown to him it was the first day
of the January sales and the store was filled
with bargain hunters who understandably panicked.
Shelves and tables were overturned,
display cabinets sent crashing to the floor
as customers screamed and rushed for the door.
Within minutes, the bull was completely alone,
up to his fetlocks in broken bone china. Dresden.
A smoking debris of hand-painted smithereens.
A sea of spouts and porcelain sharks’ fins,
of sunken gravy boats and butchered cows,
Spode question marks and headless figurines.
‘I bet I get the blame for this,’ snorted the bull,
as he lowered his horns, stamped his hooves,
ready to charge at the plate-glass window.
‘Then again,’ he reasoned, ‘I’m completely innocent.’
But just in case, he slipped out of the back door,
tiptoed down the street and raced back to the farm.