We took it out back
and we beat the stuffing out of it,
then we stuffed it, broken, into the back
of the car, and dumped its mutilated body at the dump.
It felt good to do this. After all, the cat had peed on it twice,
and the mortgage company had sent another threatening letter,
and we felt like kicking the shit out of some bankers -
but all we could do was sit back down
on the couch, and drink another beer,
and our helplessness smacked
of cat piss.
So we dragged it outside
and bludgeoned it with the sledgehammer.
Then we took the ax to its back, its arms and legs
and middle, the springs coiled up inside like large and small
intestines spilling out in the yard as we chopped and hacked,
breathing hard from the hard work of beating
the crap out of something you might have
caressed in another life, or another
house, one without a cat with
a urinary tract infection,
or one without
an adjustable rate mortgage,
an ARM you want to break but can't -
so you look around for something else to break,
and it could be your banker or it could be your cat or it could be
someone you loved in another life, or maybe even in this life.
And it feels good to do this. But then it begins
to feel like an indiscretion. And then
like a desecration. And then
it begins, like a death -
a death with its own
life.
