COFFEE ON THE STOOP
In the yard across the way, the neighbor’s cat—
the obese orange one
with chronically twitching tail—
toys with something once feathered.
A sparrow?
Gone, anyway, and the cat clearly joyed with the kill.
It seems the bird was entered into the great plan
as a thing to die
in another creature’s mouth,
And I, as a thing to watch and muse, exonerated
by the fence between.
Isn’t this why we try to think
ourselves beyond nature?
Wanting truths more pliant, wisdoms mired
in ambiguity’s fecund muck. But—
face it—Nature’s nothing
if not crude.
It’s Big Swallows Little. Cold Equals Death.
It’s Water Me, and I Will Grow.
