HOSPITAL CURTAINS

Another trip to the hospital

she coughed too much,

moaned in pain, didn’t know

she was fighting to stay on Earth.

Didn’t know her or her story,

her diagnosis or her name.

We feel guilty now, for hearing

her take her last breath as she

passed from this world.

We sat nearby, as the nurse tells

the husband how she has died.

I shouldn’t have seen his face as

he stared blankly the silent body-

his wife for more than fifty years.

Can I call your children for you?

We never had any.

Does she have a brother or sister?

They’re all gone.

Is there anyone you’d like me to call?

I don’t think so.

You let me know. Are you ok?

I just don’t know how I’m going to tell the dog.

He loves her so much and she loved him.

GONE DOG

I hear paws clicking across the linoleum floor,

she continues to sweep crumbs from the table,

our son still thinks he has to put the gate up.

She swore she heard barking in the back yard

and yelled, Can somebody please let him in?

Opening the door each afternoon, she expects

him there, waiting to welcome us home again.

Today I went down the Pet Food aisle, reached

for a bag of the healthy food, a habit for years

Even Cat knows he’s gone, he stares at the

corner where the little round bed used to be

He’s not stupid, you say to us, but we all know

he’ll never care to learn how to respond to life’s

most important words- biscuit, bed, outside, food.

IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS

Sometimes I wake up and hear the birds singing.

I wonder if others know how early they begin.

After checking the clock, I try to go back to sleep.

I know my two alarms will go off soon and the dog

will start his whining, the sounds mean “time to eat”.

The cat will begin poking at me and walking on me.

A strange little creature that seems to understand

how to apply pressure in order to get me out of bed.

But before my feet hit the floor, I pause each day and

say -“What day is it today?” and “Where am I going?”

I stop by the window at the top of the stairs.

I part the blinds to see if it’s raining or if it is windy.

A strange routine for me and the two pets, I think as I go

to the bathroom, as I open the back door, as I make coffee.

I reach for the purple containers; I pour pet food into bowls.

My son is still in bed for a little while longer and when I

check on him, he looks the way he did when he was a baby.

It seems the days pass by quickly and I end up at this point

each morning, leaning against the wall, waiting for the coffee

to finish, for the last drop, thinking how I'm doing alright now.

A STRAY

When I found you in the woods

it was obvious you’d be taught

to beg for food, to chase rabbits,

to fear the rolled up newspaper,

to cower and shrink from a broom.

You did not think of going inside,

that was the deal made in order

for you to stay with us for 10 years.

I didn’t know I’d be burying you

here, behind the tan shed on the

day before I was to leave for college.

NATURAL BORN KILLER

For a week, he sat on my chair listening to
scratching under the front porch steps and
when it’s in the twenties outside, little animals
try to come in to eat, to get warm, to survive
the harsh January weather of a Jersey winter.

My wife says it must be a chipmunk, the ones
we always see scurrying around in summer.
But the cat and I think it’s got to be a mouse.
Early this morning, I’m up before everyone else
and I hear that old cat running around the house
banging into furniture, batting at the curtains,
scampering in short bursts through the kitchen.

And when I decide to check it out, I find him
sitting calmly, staring at the lifeless gray body
of the mouse, and my cat looks disappointed
that the game is over, not knowing he’s made
his first kill after nine years of never going
outside and always eating the same dry pet food.

Instincts from thousands of years of mouse catching
were summoned this morning and to think he did
it without having any claws on his front set of paws.