The day Teal ate your hat
you weren’t best pleased.
He chewed it well, that dear dog,
his sloppy yellow jaw gnawing away
at the brown felt and trim.

On that same day he ate your slippers
and chewed my bright red dungarees
hanging on the washing line.
Mum was not well pleased either.
Teal was in the doghouse that day.

The hat had travelled with you
from Lisbon to the Alentejo cork forests,
on the Andes to London and back,
shading you from hot Portuguese sun
sheltering you from cold English rain.

Like Hermes you travelled, did trade
and opened the eyes of my curiosity,
read me Pascal and his Pensées,
Voltaire’s Candide, Tolstoy and Dostoievsky.
Sparked my longing to cross borders.

The hat made you handsome
your piercing bright blue eyes under the brim
searched, it seemed, for something
you could not find in this mortal world.
I prefer wind to hats, but both mess up my hair.