Bird Nineteen: Kittens in the Road

Yes, there were kittens in the road.
And, no, I am not over it.

Kittens in the Road

And finally, it is the kittens in the road
that unravel you.

not the dead daddy or the nightmares,
scolding grandmother yanking braids,
the bruising step-father or his menacing,
molesting son,

not the angry markered scrawl on
the back of the bus seat, bathroom stall,
ringing punch to the jaw, lonely walk home,

not the Humbert-Humbert softball coaches
proffering wine coolers and weed, hair-flip
mafia holding court with scowls and scissors,

not the infinite trail of pressuring boys in
pickups, pastures, parking lots,

not the pale genius-stalker sketching,
stuffing poems in your locker,

not the war, the global warming, rats
in the attic, the toothless, pneumoniac
grandpa in the nursing home,

not the miscarriage, the failed marriage,
the stroke or its lopsided aftermath,

but the kittens in the road,

carpool mothers neatly
maneuvering their clownish SUVs
around a mewling, matted mass

recklessly pawing the air, limp sibling
lying yards away and mercifully dead.

And you are both of them and
you cannot look away.


Photo by longhorndave