THE CONVERSATION
Take the time
my brother, just a boy,
sat alone in the house
and spoke to the stray.
Nestled in a blanket
faded as the ocean is
some days, the cat lay
swollen with trinkets.
Intent, my brother stroked
a streak of wet hair under
the cat’s throat, curlicued
with fluid, as one by one
its young slid out in glazed
wrapping, each cradling
a purse of blood and blue
meat, all of it a kind of food
the mother struggled to eat.
—from Rattle #24, Winter 2005
Tribute to Filipino Poets
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Jon Pineda: “I come from a long line of ‘cat whisperers.’” (website)
