there is a mangy feral kat
who creeps onto his back porch
a brushfinished concrete slab
split sideways by a recent earthquake
hidden behind fourbyeight foot partition skins mounted at right angles
hung from tenpenny nails on twobyfour studs spaced on twentyfour
inch centers are balias galvanized metal washtubs and trussed on anglebraces was
a fourbytwelve inch plank shelf that holds goldflecked quartz from Montana
mines rocks from Oregon shoals and Cornish hardrock slag from the Sierras above
Nevada City and Grass Valley California
strewn among the rock are sunbleached deer bones and weathered
fused vertebrae antlers and
long-ago thrown rusted horseshoes tangled with crooked blacksmith nails
the kat sorts through them nervously
eyeing the bones
eyeing him
she spites him by pushing rocks from their cradles where they fall
thud stab bullethole stars in the greygreen concrete under the fluttering
palegreen leafy awning of twisted wisteria vines
feral has another name
mischievous
she is stoked with legendary feline curiosity
the muffled rock gunshots her claws plucking at the tines of the
screen door like the strings of a harp
she lets him know it is time for her to eat
laconically he cursed her under his breath but fills small ceramic
bowls left for her with kibble and freshwater
other ferals also help themselves to them at night
other cats and opossum a fantastically fat raccoon who wrestles itself
under the partitions with spastic garrulous grunts and groans
later her sudden litters
he never met scattered rains he did not like or hawks who peer
down at him from on wing and pity his lethargic walking as he jealously regards
their flight and soaring above me
leaving no
prints on the sky
sitting on the back porch amid these histories he
misses her wile and irritation when shes not there
smoking a cigar sipping a whisky and soda he wonders when next mischievous
and he will meet
1403, hallieday/Thursday, 15 12.
11 40 months
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