Jan 2015
her husband
was not named Schrödinger
though many days they did not know
if the cat was dead or alive
now and then
an offering, usually a small sparrow,
was found on the porch, and she complained
not once of mischievous mice
from her kitchen window,
hunched over a ***, or mixing lemonade,
she would spot the black and white creature,
(who never was given a name, not even by three farm sons)
stalking imagined prey across the yard,
under the swing set, or in the corner
by the white picket fence
she could remember the day
the neighbor brought two kittens,
asking her to choose--it was snowing lightly
she chose the smaller of the two
the civil thing to do
she rarely saw
when it lapped up the milk she left,
or licked clean the plate with sardines
but she knew it was he, taking a light repast,
a sabbatical from great mysterious hunts
in the green barn, or by the cellar door
the boys were all in school then,
full of pink color, noise, and often
covered with rich dirt
one by one they left…
pneumonia took the youngest
a day when the cat sat, statuesque,
by their black 1940 Ford
the eldest
disappeared on a Saturday, into a lake
where large mouth bass were plentiful
and the waters clean, until his friends saw him dive
into the depths, not to be seen again before Tuesday,
when his bloated body decided to come up for air and light
the same day she saw the cat skitter up the lone oak
in the front yard
the middle, her most quiet
said goodbye from the bus depot,
saluting them as he turned to the bus door
a year to the day before he was shot through the throat
on some horrid hunk of rock named “Iwo Jima”
the cat was nowhere to be found that day
but she swore she heard him meowing
all the night after they put her baby
in the silent soil
her husband got the cancer
and drifted off on a Christmas eve
to some pasture she saw in the snowy sky
when they put him in the ground, the cat
made no sound, though she saw him
faintly, moving in some faraway
fallow field, following his own
soundless dreams
was not named Schrödinger
though many days they did not know
if the cat was dead or alive
now and then
an offering, usually a small sparrow,
was found on the porch, and she complained
not once of mischievous mice
from her kitchen window,
hunched over a ***, or mixing lemonade,
she would spot the black and white creature,
(who never was given a name, not even by three farm sons)
stalking imagined prey across the yard,
under the swing set, or in the corner
by the white picket fence
she could remember the day
the neighbor brought two kittens,
asking her to choose--it was snowing lightly
she chose the smaller of the two
the civil thing to do
she rarely saw
when it lapped up the milk she left,
or licked clean the plate with sardines
but she knew it was he, taking a light repast,
a sabbatical from great mysterious hunts
in the green barn, or by the cellar door
the boys were all in school then,
full of pink color, noise, and often
covered with rich dirt
one by one they left…
pneumonia took the youngest
a day when the cat sat, statuesque,
by their black 1940 Ford
the eldest
disappeared on a Saturday, into a lake
where large mouth bass were plentiful
and the waters clean, until his friends saw him dive
into the depths, not to be seen again before Tuesday,
when his bloated body decided to come up for air and light
the same day she saw the cat skitter up the lone oak
in the front yard
the middle, her most quiet
said goodbye from the bus depot,
saluting them as he turned to the bus door
a year to the day before he was shot through the throat
on some horrid hunk of rock named “Iwo Jima”
the cat was nowhere to be found that day
but she swore she heard him meowing
all the night after they put her baby
in the silent soil
her husband got the cancer
and drifted off on a Christmas eve
to some pasture she saw in the snowy sky
when they put him in the ground, the cat
made no sound, though she saw him
faintly, moving in some faraway
fallow field, following his own
soundless dreams
