Choke

Sometimes I pull on stray cats’ tails

until they get annoyed and either bite my wrists

or flee around the corner drugstore, chirping

maniacally as they bobble into sewers.

 

When I’m prowling the streets of Miami

on a slow August afternoon, I can’t help

but throw curbside pebbles at the caged parrot

dangling outside the exotic pet shop.

 

It’s the pinching thrills of pain, I suppose,

that keep me spry. At the very least,

this little game I play is much kinder

than shredding apart the wings of butterflies.

 

Somehow I think that would be too cruel.

I’m in the business of harmlessness, after all.

I’m not some sort of demonic maverick,

really - cross my heart on my mother’s

 

seaside grave. She can finally rest a while.

Sometimes I think maybe I’m the rat,

kicked to the gutter by a steel-toed boot,

squealing at the sky strewn with steel.