I Have a Hard Time with Nature

The black cat’s marbled eyes
eclipsed as they held mine,

made me watch his red tongue
switch back and forth on the tender

neck of a baby rabbit, stretched out
in the camouflage of dry grass,

how he took delicate bites, all the time holding
my eyes. I imagined the moments before:

the rabbit rigid from the stalk, and then
the pounce, the eye-widening pierce of claws.

The flesh, oddly beautiful,
glistening blue.

 

Kindergarten

Banned the first day, unvaccinated,

I was admitted the second.
Every day after that

old Mrs. Eliot referred to the rules

learned on the first day of school.

Too scared to ask,

I held my bladder,

watched from my desk,

as children jounced on the hobby horse

or dipped fingertips into primary colors.

When Mrs. Eliot reminded us

broken rules had consequences,

I thought of jail, chain gangs,

clouds of explosions,

as in the Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Oh, to be there from Day One,

as the golden scroll unrolled,

Mrs. Eliot pronouncing edicts,

like Walk, don’t run, handed down

from the principal or God.

All I really needed to know

I never heard, while the others

went to the head of the line,

instructions pressed into their minds
like Playdoh.

 

In Bed, I Listen for Flying Squirrels in My Attic

I miss the thump as they snuck in late, the rustling,

scuffling bump of them as they’d turn in for the evening.

The space between two-by-fours were sleeping quarters,

tufts of insulation made blankets the color of cotton candy.

After their glide to my roof from the tops of the pines,

cold nights, huge eyes closed, they slept all in a row

like the girls in the orphanage from the Madeline books.

I’m left with solitude and tiny exit-only doors on my roof.

We’d kept the same hours, they were the best of guests,

no demands, leaving with a swoosh before breakfast.

I paid the wildlife specialist to remove them from my attic.

I can’t sleep.