ii,
one white and a skinny black kitten
are frozen staring at each other
while the elder extends a paw
seemingly try to pull the younger forward
on his sheer cliffside path, I mean
I don't know it's a he, I'm floating
a hundred meters out in the Adriatic
kicking about after a run but it seems
so patriarchal, a lion-king reenactment
by these two Dalmatians. I swim
back to drip a silhouette on
sandstone, walk up hoping to help
but fairly sure neither will accept;
the white cat turned away to lick its paws,
pretending disinvolvement.
over a few minutes unseen
social complexities become apparent
the fearful kit seeming scared
not of the walk, but of the other,
but also compelled, not retreating
until a mew shoots his eyes high up and back
into the cactus that spills
from the high mansion's wall
where a bored bald man sits with white wine;
the kitten turns, tentative at first, surer
at repeated mrrews stepping straight
up the cliff and meets
a third cat, also darker than its own shadow;
as it appears the white cat turns back and
runs down the cliff; stopping
just before the sea path;
the two black cats (I'll call this one
its ma, having lept to assumptions early,
but really the whole situation is confused now;
besides color, these two share the crooks
in their tails) move now purposefully towards
the white, the black adult looking at the white,
which backs up slightly, while the kitten runs
to a plastic bag between them and begins
chewing, the black adult moves closer
and the white does not retreat, but turns;
they stand there, and slowly the tension
eases. a few walkers
come up the trail and both parties look
politely annoyed at the other's presence.
i,
a mew from a yard;
when I respond
a lanky black cat steps obliviously
into
the streetlight
familiarly I crouch
with fingernails dangling and eyes
elsewhere until it comes
to brush its head and purr