What We Don’t Tell the Children

Feathers in the yard this morning.

My cat?

Or the two black strays,

ominously staring with orange eyes

from corrugated, rusted sheep-shed roof?

I hear them at night

yeowling--

shush of branches, squeals and shrieks,

then silence.

Artist couple rented around the

corner last month. Were ecstatic

about this primitive place.

She came over one morning,

arm bandaged, boyfriend

stern-faced, sucking air through teeth,

she said, “My cat went belly up,

no animal is supposed to attack another

belly up. Those blacks are vicious.

Ought to be put to sleep.”

Her Siamese crossed Blacks’ territory,

she came upon them, kicked one Black,

and it scratched her arm in defense.

They moved out month after they moved in,

truck loaded with paintbrushes, canvasses,

cameras, to find another primitive place ,

tranquil as a pond in autumn evening

where golden-tipped wheat leans,

place with no problems, no animal

attacks another, where gentle folk

are as groomed as heirloom porcelain,

where there is no pollution, no drugs,

no world gone belly-up

the rest of us are trying to heal.

After they left, Antonio and I

sat on the patio, talking how he

and Blacks played hide-n-seek,

how he crouched in cool cracks

reaching his arm under boards

by the fence, they squirmed under,

pawing at him playfully, their claws

tucked in their furry mitten-paws

safely.

“Where’s the other Black Papi?”

“I don’t know, mejito, “ I said.