Perched on your shoulder
As you worked. Or bushhogged
The verge. The tractor clanking,
His unsheathed claws dug in
To your Carhartts. Balanced
Like a small branch in the wind.
Hooking upside down along a beam
To the barn swallow’s nest
A basket of wattle and spit.
Raking out the fledglings
With one pronged paw
While I gathered them up and swatted him
In full knowledge that nightfall
Would find his jaws feathered.
Cairo, we called him, for his old
Three legged Pa, Egypt. He’d leap
From stall to stall in a fit
Of gaiety. Nestled on the bay mare’s withers
As she chomped oats from a bucket.
Fearless as a falcon. Jade eyed.
An onyx streak as we mowed
The meadowgrass, timothy and
Florets of sweet alfalfa.
The barncats breviary, a daily recital
Of rounds, prowling each pasture
For field mice and shrews.
We missed him gradually.
No small black flash
Underfoot in the straw. No
Riveting purr to the backstroke.
Chores blurred his memory.
Watering the horses, liming
The dry lot, trimming the tiny hoofs
Of the new foals.
Wintertime, tossing down hay from the loft,
We found him pressed like a flower in a bale
Perfectly flattened, a silhouette
Of a little black cat.
Plain Spoke
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