OSH

OSH

Myra puddled among beige cats.

Beige herself, she disappears

except for her bat-ears looming

above the crowd. The other cats

welcome Myra’s alien features:

elongated head, spindle legs,

whippet tail. She’s popular,

and fecund, once, giving birth

to more than twenty litters

of Oriental Shorthair kittens.

After eight years, too exhausted

to continue, she faced extinction;

but the shelter queen snatched her

from her indifferent owner’s grasp.

She’s the only sample of her breed

among a hundred and fifty cats—

yet unadoptable, unwilling

to live in a house lacking cats

enough to shield her from the world.

Five years huddled here among

cats glad to have her. Sometimes

she withdraws to the under-parts

of a tattered upholstered chair

and snores her old lady snore

alone in the dark. More often

we find her cuddled with her friends,

all complementing her color.

We brush and feed her as if she

alone occupied this shelter;

and the sixty other cats

in this room gaze upon her

with a certain satisfaction,

as if her exotic framework,

more like a monkey’s than a cat’s,

flattered by comparison.

Loki Adopted

Loki Adopted

Loki of white and orange bulk

bullies through the Pumpkin Corridor,

scattering Queenie, Gemini,

Little Ben, Angel, and others.

Loki wants people to admire him,

but like the child of “Animula”

he’s both precocious and wild.

Tensile and poised, his repose

seems a mode of attack. Needy

as only large male cats can be,

he claims all available space.

His friends are patient. Queenie,

fearless and half his size, bumps him

from a food dish. Gemini

huddles against him and purrs.

Angel sneers down from the perch

she holds against the gravest assault.

Little Ben wants only to play.

On a brimming autumn Saturday

Loki gets lucky. Someone needs him,

only him. A cat carrier yawns

and he’s gone forever, his new home

out of state, out of mind. The space

he occupied hums as cats compete

to fill it. Little Ben, owl-eyed

tux cat, and Queenie, gray tiger,

cuddle into place so the gap

in the Pumpkin Gang doesn’t show.

They’ll remember Loki, of course,

but the flux of cats engages them,

and he’ll recede into the distance

in a patter of faded pawprints,

fragile as a dusting of snow.

Hamilton and Bianca

Hamilton and Bianca, siblings,

look fresh as bread from the bakery.

White-dominant calico

Bianca, reddish-splotched white guy

Hamilton arrive attached

as if still in the womb. Spaying

almost undoes Bianca. Careless,

sloppy work allotted shelter cats

leaves her so loosely half-stitched

she almost spills her innards

and has to see a second vet

for repair. Separated, caged,

the siblings droop like daffodils.

Hamilton tries to befriend

his neighbor, but pines for his sister.

She curls into a seashell-shape

and refuses, when petted, to purr.

The life of the big room grinds on.

Bianca heals, but she’s sorry

she ever became a cat. A couple

employed by MIT arrive,

embrace the siblings, depart

with two cat carriers brimming.

A week later a chronicle,

with photos: brother and sister

playing, eating, trailing after

their doting human companions.

The last photo: two cats curled

together so tightly they merge.

The caption: “All tuckered out.”

Ranger's Fate

Ranger’s Fate

Ranger unhappy in his cage.

Little Ben thrusts a paw

inside, comforting the prisoner.

What has Ranger done? No one

can say; but when Gretchen’s voice

ascends the stairs, Ranger cocks

his ears and growls. Little Ben

reassures him. I crack the door

and insert a dose of canned food.

Ranger scoops it up and grins

his pale orange neutered grin.

Later I clear the area,

unlock the cage and exhort

Ranger to roam and chase a ball.

Rumbling from corner to corner,

batting the ball and my dangling paw,

Ranger plays at being a cat.

As a kitten rescued from a wall

he seemed a normal smudge of orange.

Why is he now on Prozac? What grim

officious person did he bite?

Gretchen? Mary? No one recalls,

no one knows why we drug him.

Liberated, playful, he’s all cat,

but one of the shelter managers

wants to kill him: unadoptable

and lacking a quality life.

That isn’t going to happen.

Little Ben joins in the play

and the two rush around together,

their brisk little faces brimming

with the vital force Thoreau

treasured in everything alive.

Amanda

 

Amanda

Amanda in her many stripes

curls and exposes her belly,

eager for pets. Her sister,

a shy calico, the beauty

of the family, hunkers

at a water dish, wary of me.

The corridor is too narrow,

but it’s home to twenty cats.

Angel lived here, and Gemini.

Angel sneered at everyone.

Gemini, calico angora,

climbed my trouser leg

and slept in the crook of my arm

as I dished out food to the others.

When someone adopted her

my inner organs clenched. Angel,

also taken, left a fistula

only slightly smaller. Months

have passed, and Amanda still poses

for the attention she needs.

Vacuuming, dumping litter,

washing and bleaching dishes,

restocking food, towels, water

take time, leaving few moments

for stroking and playing with friends.

Amanda wants to come home with me,

wants her sister to tag along.

When I turn off the lights only

the window at the far end glows

with twilight. Amanda’s eyes flick

silver a moment, then close

as she coils into herself, grieving.