Early Lessons: The Litters

Rouge, the tabby who matched my mother’s hair,
had kittens in the crook beneath the stair.

Mink Max had hers on the porch, on a perch of dried
cloth. My mother didn’t let her come inside.

I was four when Rouge brought forth her litter.
I named each kitten: Puffy, Twinkle, Glitter.

I was twelve when Max grew swollen-large.
She’d purr and preen and queenly strut, garage

to snowy gutter, stoop to alley to back-
yard. And Rouge? Daddy put her kittens in a sack

and drowned them in the toilet. The sack throbbed,
the sack mewed. I held my ears and sobbed

though he said to let them die was just humane.
Max glared at me one day beyond the windowpane.

She seemed untamed, she snarled and hissed and rolled
her arching back. Her newborns: dead of the cold.

I had to see. I let one chill my palm.
I weighed the awful event with icy calm

and coldly cursed my mother for allowing the kittens’ fate.
Thus it was I learned terror and hate.