And arriving home,
and refusing no further dream or thought,
and taking the stairs (the elevator broken),
all dappled light on spectral mountain
of fissured memory long ago,
he comes upon Zeus,
the broken old cat,
the object of all his disfigured love,
who lets children cuddle and carry him,
limbs splayed,
conversing and complaining loudly.
A local legend, Zeus,
of seventeen good years and one bad,
wearing a cracked pink pleather collar
and facial…
