Trotsky the Cat

I told you my teacher said I could be anything I wanted to be
You said there was no way that ‘I’ could be anything I wanted to be

I showed you my new glove I paid for with my paper route money
You had a baseball and tossed it at your sister’s cat, Trotsky

I asked if you wanted one of my paper routes
You showed me the new bike your dad gave you for not stealing

I said I could be a ballplayer and asked if you wanted to throw to me
You said that a glove would not make me a ballplayer

I said you would need more balls to back up that statement
You punched me in the nose

I bleed all over my white sneakers
You said you might want a route and rode off on your new bike

I finished my paper route and made another payment on my bike
You choose me to play on your team at recess

I got left out of batting order and got stuck in right field
You took over my paper route, never paying up the overdue collections

I paid the overdue collections
You said I could pound sand if I thought you would pay back the money

I said I would pound you
You punched me in the nose

I felt good about not bleeding on anything important
You said I could be anything that sounded like failure

I watched as later that night your house burned down
You had taken the batteries from the fire alarm for the light on your bike

I asked if you knew what had happened to cause the fire
You said your sister’s cat, Trotsky

I said I had sold Trotsky to the Barley brothers two hours earlier to pay for uncollected paper route fees
You said then why was a burning cat seen running into your garage

I said everyone knows the Barley brothers love to set cats on fire
Guess I failed to see that coming

Catnip Glen

With May tall grass that wets my shin

I search the grounds at Catnip Glen

Finding asparagus, now and then

Old lilacs bloom for none this day

Save starlings and the deer that lay

Beneath the elms where grasses sway

And hawthorns pull my hat again

By harvest, corn will fill the bin

That lonely stands at Catnip Glen

A rusted gate where vines now spin

Wet clothes no longer hug the wind

That echoed sounds of past children

No pictures more, out on the lawn

Of birthday parties now long gone

Summers, Winters, endless dawns

And sunsets, who’d have thought they’d end?

Say, who knows where the plows have been

That should have turned old Catnip Glen?

My cats will notice where I’ve been

But I’ve no notion who lived in

The house they burned, with barn and pin

I pick the roadside spears so grand

Their memories evidence of land

That out produced its garden stand

For corn and soy, no horse or hen

To stride the grounds on Catnip Glen

While trees confer, remember when?