The Grandmother and The Kitten

My Thai-wife’s grandmother has spent

the day securing the fence around the house

with metal bed-spring parts sprung from

the recycler next door and refurbishing

our old rabbit hutch for a white kitten that

persists in making the inaccessible space

behind the propane tank in the kitchen

accessible at night for the un-house broken.

The kitten is too young to be let out at night.

She has worked at these tasks “without

heat” as Faulkner once wrote and while

wearing a brown-knit bowler hat that

reminds me, for some reason, of Pablo

Picasso.  She has fashioned new bamboo

bars using a machete, patched the roof

with old drywall and secured everything

with piano-wire. When the kitten escaped

before the old woman could finish her roll-

your-own smoke, she arose in due course

and began stuffing old blankets and rags

in possible escape routes.  Picasso once told

his grandchildren to piss on a new statue to

cure it.  Art is never neat.  I don’t know

whom I rooting for here because both

sides have art and artifice on their side. 

I’ll keep you posted.

FG 7/29/2013

  

All rights reserved by the author Forrest Greenwood.