Elegy for an Abandoned Kitten by Jason Ray Carney

 

Image / Hiếu Trọng

Elegy for an Abandoned Kitten

It is dark at the pavilion.
I hear you crying, plaintive, anger Mixed with fear,
Calling for your mother who cannot find you, Or is dead.
I follow the sound to a dark knot of grass,
And there shine the light:
A small orange kitten, hissing, spitting at The alien glow.
They have tried to feed you, But you do not eat solid food.
The tin can of food is untouched, Fly-blown nearby.
When I turn off my light, your hisses become A plaintive cry again,
As if you cannot decide if the darkness Is safer,
And your mother can hear you as long as You are in shadow.
I listen to you cry, hoarse, mewling,
And think about your short life,
Perhaps bathed by your mother’s tongue Just a month ago.
As I drive home at 80 miles per hour
Through the mist halo of my rental car's low beams, On Route 36, I try to call my wife to tell her I am afraid:

I had drunk a few beers, I am in an unfamiliar state On an unfamiliar road, and drowsy— Keep me awake. Talk to me.
But I am lying.
I am thinking of you, and of the darkness, And of the serpent Coiled across the field, who can hear Your plaintive calls,
And I am thinking of our cosmic darkness, On 36, all around, And my desperate need for my wife To pick up the phone. © Jason Ray Carney

Jason Ray Carney

Jason Ray Carney is a Senior Lecturer in Literature at Christopher Newport University. He is the author of Weird Tales of Modernity (McFarland, 2019) and a contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books.