Angelic Desolation

Do her cats know that she
Will not be feeding them today?
Or tomorrow?
Or the day after?
Are they aware?

I trudge through the daily reminders,
Like a poor assembly line lifer,
Stuck in a Alaskan fishery,
Slicing and dicing,
Knee deep in rotting fish guts.

The hungover taste of recent misery
Lingered in my shadowy room,
When I awoke from a mediocre sleep.
The desperate sounds of garbage trucks and
Seagulls shitting on tree trunks greeted me.

On cloudy Saturday mornings when I awoke from
My restless slumber,
I made instant decisions on serious topics;
God, Family, Country… and Fear.
When will I be able to whisper all four at once?

The blonde with the sunflowers
Smiled when she
Bought me used books with
Tantalizing aromas
Of decade old must.

The classics were wedged
Among the clutter of
Tennis rackets, over-sized parkas,
And outdated travel magazines in the
Back of an untidy closet.

The hallow emptiness of the surgeon’s den
Lured the neophyte into devious antics.
He toiled eighty hours a week, knee deep in blood and
Guts, Before his junkie daughter
Eagerly sold his old Philosophy text books.

$1.25 she was awarded on the Lower East Side,
The small payout warmed her exposed belly, now
Hoping to score some rock from Julio,
She pawned whatever else she could
Like Mommy’s exalted pearls, to settle the score.

She longed the orgasmic numbing sensation of
Freshly cooked junk, the complete opposite head trip of
Anxiety, before she got busted and
Thrown up against an aging wall and frisked
By trigger-happy NYPD officers.

I read the book, a sad collection of poems, that
The girl with the sunflowers
Bought me from the crowded bookstore,
After the jittery owners bought the tattered book from a
Suburban casualty, lifted from her King’s castle.

I casually flipped through the marked pages and
Only odd and solemn thoughts of her confused gray cats
Greeted me when I slowly turned each page,
While I took a dump and read aloud a poem called
Edge.

Do her cats know that she
Will not be feeding them today?
Or tomorrow?
Or the day after?
Are they aware?