Black Stray
1am, I’m imagining my death and the deaths of everyone I love,
freak accidents and garden variety infections, infarctions,
strokes and plaques, tumors that vine to blot the sun.
2:02am, chewing the unanswered question of who or what
disemboweled the fox - fisher says the neighbor, though we both
suspect the skulking boy who wears the Dixie flag and stares.
2:30am, memory: cold winter night, my 3-month-old clutched to chest,
stepping gingerly so not to slip, an icicle thick as my wrist dropping
like a spear in front of us, her fontanelles two bruises on a peach.
2:58am, my portrait, drawn by the 10-year-old with cigarette burns,
who hoarded Legos in his cheeks until he choked, my eyes a pair of X’s,
my mouth a stitched black slash - sewn shut, he said, a Lego on the floor.
3:17am, windy day on the beach, telling my friend what I learned
at the country fair from the broad-shouldered Sagadahoc beekeeper:
To make a queen, larvae must be fed nothing but royal jelly.
The lull that followed the laughter - we’d no fucking jelly -
worsened by a bastard gull, snatching a slice of pizza from my hand,
gash of blood and tomato the sea licked clean.
4am, my therapist with the yeasty dog, his ringer never silenced,
testing me twice for ADHD (his ADHD never diagnosed),
who texted me EDM tracks from the gym, hanging from a rope.
5:47am, steeping French roast, twisting the dead bolt
to say good morning to the black cat with chartreuse eyes,
pooled like engine oil on the patio, pupils flaring.
5:48 am, he bunts against my knobby ankles,
flips and offers belly, white tuft of fur at his throat,
his claws flexing and retracting - the damage they could do!
Later, when everyone is sleeping, I’ll worry about fleas,
the headless finch and sparrow, wonder if he’s dewormed,
vaccinated, if I’m vexed or protected, sucker or thief?
6:01am, the wind picks up and the sky darkens like a bruise.
I should take down the flower baskets, button up the windows,
but instead, stroke his back while he shivers in my lap.