Every winter morning around ten
the shortbread sun tweeds its fingers
through this drowsy gauze, insistent
& curious, leaving slices of shade
like blades across the rug, arranging
itself like a mask across me -
today it squints over a killer's face,
for the cats rounded a mouse
beneath the liquor rack, broke its leg
at least, there was no saving it,
only hastening a sad end
& stopping its fear and pain.
Cats of course were furious,
their instinctual ritual interrupted
by unwanted mercy, by gentle hands
they now can't understand.
I drown the poor gray life,
& though I know we're both flecks
of nothingness in the absurd
entropic vacuum latte of universe
I feel a tremendous sympathy.
After all, what are our lives
except this same, but in slow motion?
We hunger - we risk and chance it -
sometimes we find the crumbs -
sometimes the swiping paw -
until one day the water rises over us
as the morning sun climbs in the window.