We pulled the ottoman up
as close to the screen
as we could,
and now that it’s cold outside
and you’ve never
been much of a reader,
all you do
is sit in front of that video
and bat at the birds
on TV.
What’s worse—
besides our slight
dismay that we
know you’re being tricked
and you don’t—
what’s worse
is that we’re missing
all our favorite shows.
It’s the usual family crisis:
one TV and everyone
wants to watch it.
We tried to get you interested
in our shows, Boris,
but you just
don’t get the jokes.
And nobody even moves
on that one game show.
You like
TV that moves.
That’s why you love
your kitty video.
Birds fly in,
birds fly out.
Just like outside.
Except now
we all sit and watch you
watch the birds.
What would the pioneers think
if they could see us?
They knew what to do
with their evenings.
Dip candles,
make socks,
sharpen their
thingamajigs.
This is why people
are so pessimistic
about the world today.
Because we’ve given up
making socks
to watch cats
sit in front of TVs.
Of course,
how many yuks
did those pioneers get,
sewing and dipping?
Not many,
I’d say.
Probably none.
But when we watch you
rise up on your hind legs, Boris,
and take a swing
at that television,
well,
all we do is laugh.
We laugh every time.
You still don’t get the joke, Boris,
but it doesn’t matter
because you’re having fun
and we’re having fun.
And years and years
from now
we are going to say,
“Remember when
Boris watched TV?”
and we’re going to
have a really good laugh
which, I repeat,
is more than the
pioneers ever had
sewing their
warm and serious socks.
12
I know how you love her, Boris,
your sister,
and I,
an only child,
envy you.
Animals are lucky.
They are almost always
part of a litter.
And wasn’t it wonderful,
when you were a baby, Boris,
to sleep in a pile
of brothers and sisters,
all that warm breathing,
and the knowing
you were not alone?
You should see how
we humans do it.
We have one baby
at a time, mostly,
and as soon as it is born
we put it in a box
all by itself
and though we put
warm booties on its feet
and a little hat on its head
and wrap it up
snug in a blanket,
that baby is far from snug.
That baby is
going to scream
for hours
and everyone is
going to think
it’s gas,
but, really, Boris,
it’s because God forgot to
make people
in litters.
How many baby kittens
do you see
screaming for hours?
None.
Who would,
curled up in
a big pile of fur
and feeling somebody
lick your ears
now and then.
Why is it God
forgot to give
humans company?
Even if a human
is lucky enough
to have a brother
or a sister,
it takes nearly a year
of waiting
and even then
it’s a disappointment
because all they
do is scream.
I have lived
a good while, Boris,
and I have never
gotten used to
being alone.
But you, Boris,
you have always
had your sister
and this is why
you don’t go looking
for new friends,
as I do,
or haunt the coffee shops,
as I have,
or worry that
no one likes you.
You have always
had
someone
to come home to.
13
Boris likes to play spinnies.
That’s when we put you down
on the hardwood floor,
all stretched out,
and we give you a twirl.
Around you go.
Spinnies!
We get you going like
a merry-go-round,
and you lose every ounce
of feline dignity
as you whip around
at our whim,
and we are delighted
by your silliness.
But when you get tired
of the game
and try to walk away
and we say,
“One more time, Boris,”
that’s when we
see the tiger in your eyes.
That’s when the big cat
on that little circus stool
just an inch from eating
his trainer if there’s one more flaming
hoop to jump through
shows up in your eyes, Boris.
And you take that spinnie
in stride,
but we all know,
we all know,
you are humoring us
and we are on very thin ice
indeed
and suddenly
it is we who look so silly,
big dumb humans
giggling at spinnies
when we should be
building rocket ships
and making art
instead of giving Boris a go
one more time.
It must be then
such a thin thread
between love and hate
for you, Boris.
And only because you
are better than we are
and more noble
and patient
and with a real ability
to weigh things in the balance
that you forgive us
and take one last ride
before you get up and walk away
like it was no big deal,
just going with the flow,
no problem.
Saving face, Boris, as you
leave us in that
big empty space on
the floor
with our
dull imaginations
and embarrassing
lack of control.
But can we do spinnies
tomorrow?
14
Boris, you weren’t supposed to
beat up an old cat.
>
Yes, he was new to the neighborhood.
Yes, he was on your walking path.
But, Boris, he was
seventeen years old
for godsakes.
Arched and hobbling like
a bent-up coat hanger.
And didn’t you admire him,
just a little,
the way he insisted on
following his owner to
the end of the path,
though it must have
seemed a day’s journey to him,
that path you streaked across
in seconds?
And, Boris, even worse,
you hid in the tall grass
and pounced.
Didn’t even face him
like a man.
There is a word for
you today, Boris,
and it is thug.
But how can we not
love you anyway.
And not sympathize,
at least a little,
with your desire to
knock that decrepit
old cat to kingdom come,
because in him
there is your future,
and mine.
There we are, Boris,
in a blink of time,
and don’t you hate
being reminded of it?
I do.
Checking the mirror
every day
to see how nearer
I’ve come to that.
To that pathetic old cat
trying to stay on the path
until it ends
where the bright water is,
and the seabirds,
and the sun.
Not giving all that up just yet.
Even when some young
whippersnapper
says it’s time.
15
The accountant’s wife
came and knocked
on my door one night
and told me you’d
come in through her
pet flap
and sprayed
her couch, Boris.
Plus scratched her cat.
Plus she came home
one day and found you
sleeping upstairs
in the middle of her bed.
She is one of those
taut little women
who wears jogging clothes.
I knew those girls in college,
those girls you’d avoid
in the dorm bathroom
because you knew
they were going to sure see to it
that you didn’t have
too much fun, missy,
you and your happy friends.
Girls like that
become accountant’s wives
in jogging clothes
who tell people
to get rid of their cats
for acting like cats
and who think
if they cut holes
in the walls of their houses
they have a right to complain
if someone uninvited steps in.
And sprays and scratches
then takes a nap.
At first I said sorry, sorry.
I’m so sorry.
I’ll find him a new home.
Then I came to my senses.
Accountant’s wife: Screw you.
I know your kind.
I’m keeping my cat,
so just plug up your hole.
And while you’re at it,
cover that
stupid pet flap.
16
Where do you go at night, Boris?
Where do you go that I can’t,
being a girl who knows better
than to
roam alleyways
in the dark,
the one lesson from my
adolescence that stuck.
But let me tell you a
secret, Boris.
I used to know the
night, too.
When I was ten and
the world wasn’t
what it is,
I used to creep
out over the dark wet grass
to the shed out back
whose roof I could climb on
and, catlike,
sit and watch and listen.
It is exquisite
to be alone in the dark,
a feeling of danger
at the edges,
but there’s your
house right there,
there’s the door,
don’t worry.
Is this what it is for you, Boris,
sitting on the neighbor’s roof
in the black night
and seeing my window there?
Can you hear my breathing,
the dogs’ deep sighs,
your sister’s purr
carrying over the
rippling night air?
And do you think, Boris,
how terribly beautiful
it all is,
this world that
lives in a frenzy all day,
then drops
limp
like a new baby
into the deep sleep of night?
When I was ten
and on a roof,
I may have thought
such things.
In the silent black of night,
only deep reassurances