A Son of the Rock

Also in the Guardian Review on Saturday was, under the heading “A Box of Delights” (though the website has “Reasons to be Cheerful,”) a small collection of new stories, poems and illustrations to lighten our mood in these times of plague and lockdown.

One that particularly caught my eye was a poem published under the rubric:-

Care of Exotic Pets
Number 1. The Axolotl at Bedtime by Catherine Johnson.

It starts, “Never give your axolotl chocolatl in a botl.”

It goes on to use nine more – different – rhymes for axolotl. You know how I love an inventive, or a fitting, rhyme. I didn’t care a whit that every single one of them was misspelled. Those misspellings served to emphasise the Aztec origins of the word axolotl (not to mention chocolate. Sorry, chocolatl.)

It was a delightful jeu d’esprit and fair cheered me up.