When Dad lost his job and, three months
later, drove our cat family to you,
I didn’t cry, holding Dad’s picture
of a white-haired farmer on his stool,
squirting milk straight from the cow
to a cat’s mouth as kittens, pursued
by a giggling pooch, chased
grinning mice through fragrant hay.
That same year, three of my friends’ pets
went to the farm—big as the King Ranch
I supposed, with enough cows to feed
a million cats, who’d entertain a million
dogs, the farmer pushing through a crush
of loving fur that stretched for miles.
By 12, I despised any man who’d sink
a sack of cats in White Oak Bayou,
then lie. So, when my son’s Miss Kitty
is crushed by a truck, I resolve, once I get
home from “the vet,” to say, “She died.”
But when—after I’ve laid Miss K to rest
in Colonel Sanders’s dumpster, and killed
enough time at the news stand
to make it to and from a vet on Mars—
my boy’s still sobbing, I invoke the farm.
“Miss Kitty will have all the milk she wants,
and lots of mice to chase. Then,
when she’s well, if the farmer
can spare her, she’ll come back here.”
“It’s like heaven,” my son says, and dries
his tears.