Gate your cats, the old bird said.
So I put them in
radio collars, inside
when it rained, and my house filled
with death moans and hissing.
They crawl like spiders, these cats.
Up curtains and sweaters,
writhing and miserable, eels
in unhappiness.
I blamed the bird,
an angry neighbor hell
bent on proving the need
for fenced yards, or simply unfond
of animalistic affection.

Chest-deep in cat soup,
wild sirens bothersome
and wailing foul murder.
But the rain won’t let up
as slick drips dropping smatter
cat-laden sills, and the bird,
still useless in water,
watches from his modified
duplex. I shut the curtains—
damn that bird.
Damn the cats, too.
They are angry, and hungry,
and parasitic. And the radio collars
might be scrambling their little brains.

The bird is molting.
I can see when he leaves
the duplex, brown plumage
tinted grey, stuffed into Hefty bags.
He drags them through the flood
to rot on the sidewalk.
With any luck, he’s losing
more than feathers.

I freed the cats.
They had turned
ravenous, nibbling on my toes
when they thought I wouldn’t miss them.
The cat dam broken,
they spread and spill
as whitewater and fury over
soaked grass, towards the featherbags.
And somehow they must have caught
the scent of secondaries
through his open window.
They find a whole room
of feather-rain smell.

The bird came home
to cat soup
waiting
for a side of finch.