Oh, mysterious Miss Coffee Cutie,
what do you think of when sipping your daily brew,
in the morning after the doctor has done his rounds?

You sit entranced like a cute mouse, ears a-twitching to the many accents,
from Geordie, in the north east with its castle that’s always new,
and that shrill sound emanating from our most musical city – you’ve guessed it,
the dialect known as Scouse.

I know you claim to be a shape shifter, as you whispered this to me while we waited
to be admitted to the psychiatric unit.

You’re an odd one right enough, but be of good cheer and swing that crazy golf club,
in the gardens of dahlias, delphiniums and drooping fronds.

Sing to me in Chinese, like you did in that restaurant,
The Mucky Duck, whose owner claimed he was from Peking.

When we retired upstairs to his private apartment, after I slipped him a few quid, your screams woke the dead, when you saw him peek in.

Afterwards, I laughed at your story-book adventures (at your age indeed!).
What a cast of characters, swimming rats, submarinal puppies off their lead,
and endangered newts in murky ponds, lambs carolling by roaring becks, 
those north-of-England streams which I think about every night after the nurse has given me that anxiety-reducing new drug, Sertraline.

But deep down you’re more than a bored former missus, obsessively telly watching in the TV room.

'Bring back the classics!' You cry, 'Wot I was brought up on, 
like the Goons, with Sellers and his many voices, 
and that singing clown Harry Secombe, not to mention the puppeteer,
Michael Bentine.

'A few of 'em were undoubtedly mentally ill, like us two.
Can I have another poppadom?'

'Indeed', I agree, 'They were all as mad as a bag of frogs,
to think up those daft sketches, they must have had some fun making them.'

Yes, she nodded at me, 'Considering some of them saw terrible deeds in the War.

'It's not surprising they became such a comic force, for laughter is great therapy.

'Big Harry with his great voice and Michael, Peter and Spike, who talked his own language of Millaganese.'

'Apparently Milligan was once resident in our temporary home, for the staff still talk about him.

'He claimed to be a shifter of shapes, like me.

At this she rose, saying, 'Oh, thanks for the nosh, but you better slip back over the hospital wall.

'If you don't see me I'll have reverted to my favourite shape, the one I used to have great fun running around, 
before it all got too much, and I ended up sectioned in that place.'

After I returned from the toilet, the little lady had indeed disappeared,
as was her wont, and I wandered back to The Mucky Duck.

The owner said, with a leer, 'You can have the back room tonight,
if you let me watch you two...'

Just then in streaked a cute mouse, and bit him on the a##se.

To my shock I recognised the rodent's victim as my nurse, who was off duty.

Then the chef walked in, complaining that somone had nicked the cheese.
Of course, you know what happened next?
The mouse became Miss Coffee Cutie.