All photographs are by Russell Bittner

F e b r u a r y

My cat walks in on foggy feet,
and I light up like Frost.
She slurs a purr—like dykes in heat
at face-off in Lacrosse.

With marbled eyes, she looks askance,
as if to say ‘How twee
that you should now romance a dance
that Sandburg wrote for me’—

which then reminds me that her nails
might profit from a clipper;
but as no sharper tool avails,
I lay siege with a slipper

which, flung in haste, cannot erase
my misplaced attribution.
And yet she’s just a cat, I think,
while I dog execution!

You sound like Pound!” now lastly seems
insipid with conviction—
as I know solecisms earn
the Academy’s eviction.

That Frost is more at ease with fog
is to my cat not new,
since she views skewering similes
as what poor poets do.

And yet, if cats are what it takes
to shake up my redaction,
just like the grave, I’ll grind this knave
with staves into retraction.

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