Dawn

Still dark outside, but I couldn't sleep anymore. Black was under the covers, sacked, as was he, so I left them and went into the main room. Outside, the neighbor across the street backed out of his driveway and puttered off--even from the window I could see his visage bent down and focused on the morning radio show.

For minutes after that, it was silent, then on the horizon, past the tree trunks, the glow came on. Then the first birds spun by and a squirreling chittered back.

In the bedroom the alarm brayed until it was slapped, and he, groaning, shuffled into the shower.

There was something comfortable about those things we know will happen but that so often get ignored in the daily fog. An alarm, a sun glow, a man waking, a shower turning on.

When the water eventually was shut off, I went in to see him. Black was still out. As he dried off and browsed his racks of clothes, he whispered to me. I stretched out on the floor, the shape of a banana he called it, though I meant it to be the shape of a smile.

-Black

Sundown

It turns the air the color of a wasps' wings,
and wind mulls about because it is soon to be
blind. Somewhere over the tree tops,
the traffic finds its way, and I think of them out there,
driving or flying or beginning a dinner.

I've slept all day, and now pacing back and forth
at this screen door, nothing but open ears and eyes,
I can only ask those that will listen:

O trees, Starlings picking through your branches,
what can you tell me of this sundown, of what to do
when it has past and I am standing here in the dark.


-Black

A Complaint To the Management

So Black's a slow eater. So slow that I like to help her out sometimes--polish that plate off sooner rather than later.

Why then must I be locked in a separate room and be imprisoned--at Black's leisure--and despite all my yelling and screaming, I am ignored.

This is probably indicative of the country we live in. Black's selfishness drives me nuts.

-Gray

Questions for the Future I

What I want to know is:

Cats from the future! What is litterbox technology like? Please tell me we are past those barbaric boxes of rocks. No doubt, that would probably mean humans use their same methods to. And to think they tried to toilet train us.

When will it snow again here. Or thunder so that it scares Gray to hide under the bed. There has been very little rain as well, and rain is the best sleep.

When will there be a time when they stay home and get to know us better, rather than be transient overlords that decide when we can and cannot be fed.

When will the hermit crabs in the study talk to us? Day in day out, they sit there whispering their secrets to each other--watch their quizzical antenne and you'll know--and undoubtedly any approach is spurned by their quick retreat into those gaudy shells. One day, hermit crabs, I will know! And then, well...then I can imagine freedom will have a new name.

-Black

Saturday Afternoon

After the cool evening last night, the following day has been a delight. The windows and doors are open to the wind, and the lizards, desperate for warmth, get slower and lethargic in the waning sunlight.

It is so easy to daydream at times like these, and so hard to keep the day from disappearing into tomorrow. I can say it is Saturday, and tomorrow will seem like Wednesday, and then another Saturday afternoon, and so on. We dine around 3--our daily rations--and then I spend the next thirty minutes cleaning, and then trying not to settle too deep into sleep, though Gray sleeps his best right after eating.

Speaking of sleep, last night, I slept under their covers, and I don't know if Gray knew I was there or not, but he settled down on the other side of the covers from me, and by morning, the urge to hug--even though we were on separate sides of sheet--was overwhelming. When you share warmth, be it in voice or in body, the connection that is created can sometimes haunt you in pleasant way; I find myself leaning into pillows, against walls, or against people when they are sitting or sleeping, and there's something right about it that can't be undone.

-Black

Better Than Spring

Last night was the first night that it was below 70 degrees, which for an October seems strange to me, but in any case, tonight, it is even cooler--down to the 50s, and it is this time of year that I love best, undoubtedly.

They open the screen doors, and the breeze off that skims off the turning leaves is better than anything Spring can hope to create. Why that is, well, I don't know.

I watch the lizards crawling along in the path of the sun beams throughout the day, and I've seen them--if I haven't caught them--grow by the inch for the past months, but now they feel it, as do the frogs that stick to the windows at night, and the spiders that have grown fat off the summer bounty.

October sounds like what it is.

--Gray

For Secrets

After a tired day, one after a weekend
spent tired, the next day finds you in the evening,
where you sit on the couch, spent and about to fall
asleep.

Meanwhile, outside, the crickets speak
back and forth about their dreams, though they
dare not come over here, and if I approach, no
matter how few blades of grass I bend, they choke
on their wings, as if I was the harbinger they spoke of.

I say all this only because the second hands tells me to.

I'm going to go find Grey and wake him, and even if we
aren't fed again, or get a snack, at least will see what
getting up amid all of this means.

-Black