As I walk with my granddaughter,

A cat walks with us.

For my granddaughter, this cat is a lion

For me it is only an old, stray moggy.

At every step my granddaugter looks up at me

And I must seem a giant to her - 

Massive and lumbering with a voice like thunder - .

I hold her hand and smile down at her.

But I bet even my smiling face, unshaved as it is,

Is like a gargoyle to her

Spouting words and steaming  breath.

I had forgotten that the world is full of monsters.

But she knows that. She knows that very well.