THAT DAY

Pumpkin, our red tabby cat, wandered more & more till he just ran off months ago... like my sister Althea did.

A few days ago he crawled home with a bloody, torn throat. Days of argument and tears. This morning our parents took him to a low-cost vet for surgery. Cheap because the guy's never done that operation before, wants to learn. The most we could argue our father into--it's that or euthanasia.

In the evening we learn it went fine. Pumpkin will live. Relief! But now I wonder just how much my dad'd be willing to spend if it was me.

THAT NIGHT

Picnicking, our new cat Persephone chases a turkey up a tree. Bird becomes a pert shawl-girl. She and a second wing- shawl-scarf kid bike the buttressed roots. Will the hunters shoot? No, just jog a lap round the stadium. We join, abike, awing. These birdbikefolk are elves. Far out in space, on asteroid austere, is their Elvish computer library. My poetry class pass lets me in. Slip into the fiction section. Find a bitter Zelazny tale, a Bible fable: Christ says a broken oath dooms Me. I am the tale. Feast in a vaulted hall, the volcano's maw, red magma-lit. Gums heatshimmer, spangled green with jade teeth. I pull a fang, but I omit The sorcerous oath to socket-seal; so lava-blood moltens: wakes to flow. Guests leap up from tables, go. Jeeps roar. I leap to an elvish rear bumper, but we all know the prophecy--if I zoom away the Mountain blows. First quake; lava-tongues lap slope. Elves escape Earth, but I'm doomed, oath-doomed For a molar's reckless pull, for my jaded greed. Engulfed in Gollum's hell-chasm. Sear. Pain. Writhe spasm. And wake.

Half a century, and I still struggle with being a cheapskate. Thanks, dad! But then, he had learned the hard way to begrudge every dime--he was dirt-poor and hungry in the Great Depression. Born a hundred years ago, yet his famine echoes on... in me.

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