Blood Memory
A Poem
I once had a real Jeffrey Dahmer of a cat.
Chipmunks, baby rabbits, mice, of course,
shrews, snakes, birds.
Once, a flying squirrel lay on the carpet
in a puzzling blob,
all the parts that were meant to open and fly
now nonsensical and loose.
Sometimes I got there in time to try to save them.
To pick them up while they were stunned and twitching,
the cat lounging on her side nearby,
amused by the way her prey interpreted the space between them
as hopefulness,
rather than a temporary reprieve,
part of the game.
Inevitably, when I set them down,
they ran frantic and crazed—
into the road and the black jaws of a tire,
into the rain barrel,
into the hawk’s shadow, gliding across the grass.
Or worse,
straight back to her.
Every time I think I’ve made progress in this life,
I realize I have done the same.
I have taken lovers from the same dark house.
Men with my father’s thirst folded into them,
carrying my mother’s small, bright knives.
I have gone from one disaster to another,
wounded, bleeding, desperate,
unable to find a safe place long enough
for the blood to dry.
The body remembers the shape of its trap.
The bird with one dragging wing
still trusts the familiar hand
that closed around it.
And I miss that cat, even now.
The sleek cruelty of her.
The green coin-eyes.
She always liked me best when I was sad,
curling against my ribs when I had tears in my eyes.
I thought she came to comfort me.
Now I wonder.
Perhaps I was simply another warm
suffering thing,
mistaking proximity for mercy.