THE ADAPTED CAT
Sat all Saturday
bored and basically
hating the day and
waiting for something.
Sally my sister
and I were dying
inside and trying
not to go crazy.
A crack and a boom
came thundering in
and spilled the rain all
over Mom’s carpet.
A pounce and a whush
delivered a cat
who bolt upright and
read this announcement:
“A trick on a dark
day helps the draggy
time pass, and chases
the grays out your door.
If you wish, you can
watch the dribbing and
drabs, or with tricks, take
a stab in the blue.
With your fish, you can
sit, and scout for your
Mom, so then when she’s
nigh, upon your cry,
you, I, and the fry
can finish our fun,
hose down the house, and
only then, when the
storm has passed and
our time is done, will
we swiftly kick these
unpleasantries out.”
Just then, with a dart,
from the red-and-white
stack of his stovepipe
hat, a teensy hand
snatched, from the reading
cat’s clutches, the note
from which he had been
piecing his speech and,
sin mucho ado,
the hand withdrew and
cat, moving too, slunk
straight and away through.
“Just what I feared,” sneered
our bowl-bound fish, “this
brash interloper
acts like he knows her,
puts on a show, but
no one does nothing,
or so much as yawns,
without absolute,
incontestable,
indigestible
proof their intentions
are pure and a sworn
affidavit that
shows they’ve consulted
and have thoroughly
secured the total,
written, explicit
permission of Mom.”
Then up his upright
umbrella pole the
cat perched the fish in
his wobbledy bowl
and pirouetted
his own tippety
toe on a ball that
slopped slippety-so
down a freshly waxed
hall, with pitching and
woe, caterwauling
and yaw, like a lone
logroller clambers
over the lumber,
limberly scrambling
out from under and
gingerly hoping
to regain control.
Not heeding, it seems,
the fish’s wee shrieks,
or his little orb’s
diminishing wet,
the cat on the ball
started to bounce, and
struggle to juggle
the peeved little pet,
plus dead overhead
any movable junk,
or half-forgotten
snack, from any old
accessible crack,
or measly mouse that
popped into his path
whilst pogoing round
our deep-brown, detached,
family-friendly,
and apparently
unparented house.
He tricked dick-and-jane
from their dustbunny
lair, and for pleasure
a Dickens he found
languishing there, then
bowled them and the fish
through the juggular
air, while researching
for additional
distractions, like a
leftover dish of
left-out cream, Dad’s old
rake still dripping of
soylent green, and a
marbular carton
of spaghetti ice
cream that Sally once
loved and now resides
calcified deep in
our freezer downstairs.
“Put me down,” screamed the
downright adamant
fish, but the mad cat
oblivious could
scarcely see, through his
gyrations and glee,
and the field of fast
invisible hands,
that he was deep in
danger of flinging
it all, the proud and
perfect result of
his haul, the fat and
happy assorted
detritus, the massed
and sordid horde he’d
acquired, including
a log still flapping
its fire, in a vast
and fulsome, frightsome
and wholesome, bouncing
big baby shebang.
Through all the buzz, fate
belled the cat, as the
inevitable
inevitably
does, and his face and
hat lay splat in the
dust, while all through the
house, projectiles took
flight, the heavier and
messier went right
to their appointed
plots, and fish to a
pot, suspended and
hot, in the kitchen.
The cat raised his head
in some painless pain,
like an ump calling
a day due to rain,
a sheep just sheared and
his ribs shown plain, like
passing a ten-ton
sorcerer’s stone, a
magician’s shame at
a trick well-blown, or
a monster’s fury
for sins unatoned.
Then we could see, neath
his stripéd stack, a
face more monkey or
man than cat, with his
front-facing eyes and
foot of five digits,
his prehensile tail
and backbone rigid,
and the way he grasped
Sally’s szechuan fan.
We could see it all,
through his twidgets and
tricks, that no matter
whence his forebears had
come, dashing cross the
savanna, with or
without gun, that he
was happily and
fully adapted
to fun, sorry for
storming and wrecking
our calm, and vowing
to set the rainy
day right, wipe away
any suggestion
of blight, swiftly fix
and polish it bright,
and then split, ere Mom.
But his hat seemed to
have a soul of its
own, in the space of
an instant it had
gracefully grown full
ninety-nine sizes
too large for his head,
then sprung some new life
form, which quickly spread,
and occupied each
niche in our indoor
ecology, new
things were evolving,
sans apology,
and making the house
their very own shambling,
shivering, rambling,
quivering river
of overgrown goo
and personal swamp.
The things flew kites in
the interior
breezes, then their lines
intersectual
lashed us all at the
knees, and our pleas
ineffectual
couldn’t sway, nor cries
for mercy delay,
things having their way.
But the cat had one
trick in the sack that
he kept sequestered
round the rim of his
hat, and with his tail
unfurling, in a
flanking maneuver,
he extracted a
vacuum from the
red-and-white stack, then
smoothly hoovered the
things and their goo from
the throwaway rug
and our ceiling too
then sucked up our house
and all of the yard,
all the crumbular
remains and the shards
of the shattered day
and the scattered clouds.
When next we turned to
look, we were again
alone, with our Mom
approaching, though it
appeared our home was
none the worse for the
wear that the cat, or
whatever he and
things actually were,
exacted and weren’t
missing any of
the things extracted
when she wasn’t there.
The fish still burbling
and rain now sleeting.
What remained was a
fresh bag of tricks for
cheating sleep, and a
red-and-white tabby
that Mom let us keep.
