The Cat Whistler

Alanbury was such a confined town
that Henry sheltered and fed forty cats
—some with litters on the way—and we could
name them all: Sheik, the Siamese ratcatcher;
Crowley, crawling rooftops after dark;
the black-furred lounger, Falstaff—we can’t say
what went on inside the house, but Henry
let them prowl our town at will

            until he called.
So we christened him The Cat Whistler:
he would put his thumb and index finger
to his mouth and conjure such a jolting
echo, that they’d motor toward his door
in droves, without promise of some yellow yarn
to claw at, or that tempting pheromone:
Nepeta Cataria. 

            Nor were these
felines ever swayed by elegance of
domesticity: they preferred the dirt
and rumble of the junkyard—to watch
the rotating ball mills bursting metal
into powder as they licked their paws.
Some took up residence at Giallo’s Barn
and tiptoed through mud with the swine, who banked
their heads, noticing

            a billowing tail.
Still, that whole, odd process was a marvel
of instinct and obeisance, and, well,
let’s be truthful—fear: to hear Old Henry
Brandt’s tarred, leathery lips rip into it
like Hell’s Locomotive, then see them dart
as one, great arrowhead onto his porch
to curl through his legs, drunk with attendance.


Matta

Don’t be alarmed....
These images are not a substitute for God....

Although his critics called them “squalid portraiture,”
his misappropriations radiate with horror:
witness monkeys’ paws in vibrant color,
lizard skins dried and pinned against a wall—

these inner landscapes are the mind’s attempt
to disambiguate religious ritual: shared idols
and communal prayers; bizarre copulations
tinted with Egyptian imagery.

In vain desires we are basically the same,
and Matta knew it.  He drew the flaccid penis
and the virulent vagina well beyond our comprehension
in tones that bear his mark: thin, impassive strokes

evoking symbols bred from complex concepts
rather than reality....

Are those exaggerated outstretched limbs
awaiting flight or crucifixion?
Is this what Yeats’s falcon looked like
returning from the cyclone?

See how he persuaded man and beast
to bow to one another, in these,
his absurd anatomies.  He interchanged
our parts, tossed in gears and circuits—rendered us
as crude anomalies: divine, yet asymmetric

and alive.  And though it’s rather jarring,
here I am—not yet born—engraved in one
from 1945: I’m kneeling at the giant gauntlet 
of Nekheny, repeating prayers that tumble
from his Horned Tongue.               
            O Distant One,
enable me to find a future in your blank horizons....

Now, I know he’s dead, and only work survives him...
...don’t be alarmed, you say, but ah
—we may as well wear mirrors on our faces—
either this man, Matta, was me, or lately,
my own image looks distressingly familiar....


The Fatal Step

    Lightning jittered our nerves at the beginning of spring,
but our lamps gave nary a flicker; our television sets
hardly shuddered during five or six days
when solar winds were battering the satellites,
and we witnessed no interruptions to the flashing image.
    By April’s end, the neighborhood oaks began to litter
our entire town with leaves and seeds
until hordes of squirrels appeared, leaping fences,
furiously twisting in and out of view
like lines on a barber pole, scaling the wooden light posts
and transmission towers mistaken for tree trunks. 
    To them, those weaving cables bound by a clip
could have been a dense network of roots,
and what did they care?  They would be led
where they wanted to go, scrambling over the high wires,
giant acorns clenched in bucked teeth,
spurred by vague prospects like tomorrow’s food
and shelter on the other side of Franklin Street.
    Their nervous persistence constantly impressed us,

so we were baffled when they started to turn up dead,
their blackened fur ravaged by the pavement
after an unintended dive.  For a while
we considered the presence of some silent predator,
though several of us opposed that idea, protesting:
only the lightning was faster than they were.
    Within a week, power was lost all over the city—
we gazed into our television’s black mirror
until we realized what was causing the fatal step...
    When the picture flared to life, a local news report
confirmed it: despite their flawless instincts—their precise
agility—a single digit lunging for the humming board
of a transformer, with another attached to a wire,
was all that was needed to send a lethal current
through their twittering noses, down to the tips
of their question-mark tails.  This one,
seemingly graceful action, as the newsman said it,
and their slender bodies were lit and melted
like the first candle of our intimate darkness.


Crohn’s Disease

What is that? you ask
feverish at seventeen
no cure for contemplating why
you struggle just to hold down meals
sighing sentences like Not another CAT scan
while surrounded by physicians
croaking hesitated guesses
in husky baritones

You’ll have to drink a gallon of this barium
to light your system up they said
well the taste is rancid
but it’s the texture and the way it slinks
toward your navel from your throat
that splits you both ways above the shitter

they say You won’t be conscious during surgery
like the time when they plunged needles
in your stomach nearly drawing maps
to drain the rust-filled abscess
just above your kidney

you must have been some kind of clown
on anaesthetic then
the tender smirks of nurses
at your bedside turned you red
when already you were skittish
from explanations of an enema
and the word suppository
spilling through your head

God knows what you told them on the metal table

in your room the radiologist who during the procedure
looked serious as Leonard Nimoy
slapped your back and laughed
as if he’d never spiked or drained your gut
but held your hand while other doctors fooled for months
with faulty diagnoses

who knows what you told him on the metal table

in that metal state you only process feelings
the gentle jab of clammy fingertips
that graze along your naked rib cage
your own speech is just a vague abstraction
adding to an atmosphere of senses
like perfume or alcohol

they tell you This resection will be different
you can bet your QoL will rocket
once they hook your innards like a fish
and clip dead weight from ruptured skin
until you’re free of all those parts
that sound or feel the least bit Greek
   
six inches from the Sygmoid colon
a foot or two of small intestine
chance could be you’ll wake up with a bag
we’ll see
right now they’re worried
your immunity remains impaired
until they wane you off the prednisone
that plumped your cheeks
and sent pimples to your chin for weeks

but within a day or two count on wisps of hunger
to finally come creeping through the pain
by the time you sprout the kind of fiber
that can cover up a zit
you’ll appreciate the ease of eating
and be rid of so much spotty science
dissecting what your body needs.