NAPOWRIMO #18

Read Write Poem NaPoWriMo Prompt #18 - Meow!

---

FELINE FRAGMENTS

1.
Schrödinger's cat: to open the box or to leave it closed?
That is the question.

2.
Smirnoff gives birth to her kittens during dinner time, prostrating herself on the living room carpet at the transition to linoleum tile and kitchen. We devour our Hamburger Helper as we watch her womb open and close with each kitten that emerges, mewling, trapped in the wet confines of its amniotic sac, which is torn away and eaten by Smirnoff, licked away into nothingness, leaving behind a small and blind new life that squirms and searches for a teat at which to suckle.

3.
The scrawny black cat, most likely feral I tell myself for comfort, without collar or tag, darts before my car and there is a solid thump when bumper meets tender bones. The legs thrash briefly and cease movement, while I take my foot from brake pedal and apply it to accelerator. I drive away quickly, hit-and-run, nauseated, trying to hold back vomit.

4.
Another scrawny black cat, except in this moment, I witness someone else hit-and-run, but this cat is not instantly killed. It thrashes about in a pool of blood as dark as used motor oil that stains the asphalt and runs toward my shoes. The cat looks up at me, its mouth flapping open and closed, open and closed, open and closed, its eyes searching mine for mercy. I watch the blood runnel around the soles of my sneakers.

5.
A young feral neighborhood cat, living by the river, chooses our porch, our doorstep upon which to sleep, curled up in fitful dreams. She meows in the middle of the night, sitting in the window wells of the basement, nudging the dryer vent with her nose as sweaters are warmed and robbed of their moisture. She meows and stares at me, her eyes searching mine for mercy. I open the door and she comes in. I close it and never open it for her again. I name her Kama, "emotional attachment."

6.
Kama naps on her blanket on the back of the couch, warming herself in the sunshine coming through the picture window, peeking an eye open every few moments, the nictating membrane sliding over the cornea as she watches goldfinches and chickadees and Oregon juncos steal sunflower seeds from the hanging bird feeder and flit past the window for the relative safety of a rhododendron. Kama stutters a meow each time an individual bird passes her. Outside, her cousin or sister, Ghost, a cat that haunts our garden and yard, but skitters away when approached, watches the birds from below, waiting for a weak bird or one less attentive upon which to close her jaws.

7.
Ghost wanders over the graves of Tigger and Bhakti, Kama's predecessors, as she makes her morning rounds.

8.
The child asks me, Where is Tigger buried? knowing that it is beneath the sandbox in which she plays.

9.
The Cheshire Cat: blinks on and off, present and absent, tangible and kenotic, binary.
He smiles and softly hisses: Open the box.