Cat Trio
Boothbay Harbor poet Emily Rand Breitner will be reading her poems as part of the Poetry of Wine program fundraiser on behalf of the Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library, to be held at Mine Oyster on Pier One, Boothbay Harbor on Saturday, Sept. 13.
Below is an example of Breitner's more recent work.
CAT TRIO
I. TRUE VALUE: GO IN FOR A LAZY SUSAN,
COME OUT WITH A CAT
Near the check-out counter
impulse-buy stuff stacked
at eye level – a cat. His head up
from a circle of brindle fur
pooled into a basket
– cool cat, watching –
a Benny Bufano cat, clean
lines of Bufano sculptures.
Scratch his ears, ignition:
a BMW motor.
We have been cat-less for so long.
After that final trip to the vet, enough
of loss, better a quiet house, we are enough
with each other, you have your fish
I have my garden.
Benny, I say, and scratch his ears,
he rubs my hand, motor shifting
into high gear.
NOTE: Benny Bufano (1890-1970), a California-based, Italian-American sculptor, sculpted many different animals in the minimalist Art Deco style.
II. IN TRAINING
Corkscrew leap
and catnip mouse is history,
you, strut-stepping
through the light-shadowed living room
mouse tail dragging from one side
of your mouth, heading for the screened-in
porch where you watch
the chattering red squirrel frisk
across the oak’s branches, a challenge you
will accept once released outside
for the first time.
I hope
you decide that Friskies
chow and a cushion are reward enough
after a successful campaign,
that you return.
III. CAT-TAILS
for Bruce Spang
Unlike the wordless bottle-brush sticks
rising from lake shallows
and worlds away
from your dog’s thump-thump
love-love semaphore
my cat’s tail telegraphs
its own Morse Code
– flick-switch-flick-flick –
of independence, freedom
to choose his own way, to snooze,
pounce, play his own game,
to come when he’s good
and ready.
As my key turns in the lock
meow! meow!
he’s there at the door,
quivering tail straight up,
and he is glad I’m home
as he runs to his empty
dish. It isn’t Gaza he’s thinking of
or even the precarious state
of big cats in Africa.
Priorities, priorities: food first
then a lick and a love.
Later, if I’m very
lucky, he’ll climb up my spine
vertebra by vertebra
and purr in my ear as though
it’s all his own idea
which it usually is.
--Emily Rand Breitner
Boothbay Harbor, Maine
March/April 2014