Number 13

Bagheera doesn’t think I should be writing a poem right now. He thinks I should be petting him instead.

Black Cat Ghazal

I would like to stalk my life on murder mittens, tick ticking
along midnight hallways, invisible as a black cat.

Thirteen ways of looking at a black bird, says Wallace
Stevens. 13,000 reasons to love a black cat, I say.

So many readers fall in love with Edgar Allen Poe's raven.
Ugh. I think he's horrible. Cf.  "The Black Cat."

Bagheera dozes on the table, head lifting and falling
with each breath. Flying dreams? Witch's black cat?

This is the last stanza and it needs to contain my name.
No. I'll just end by praising the delicious beauty of my black cat.








I can’t take a picture of the wind

So here’s a picture of my cat instead.

what rough beast

is the wind? crashing like a tidal wave through
pine forests, snapping ancient trunks in half 
like twigs, throwing roofs from houses and
crushing branches down on cars, smashing 

windows, drilling rain into nooks and crannies 
to tumble walls around us, whirling together
into fingers of destruction, plowing rows of
mobile homes into needle kindling as if

dispatching a field of dandelions into clouds
of seed. elemental roar, angry air, fuel for fire, 
water bringer and water denier, celestial broom, 
invisible fist. primal, inhuman, unstoppable.