My cat dressed in colors of a peanut
butter
marmalade
sandwich
on toast.
When he played Kill-the-Slipper,
it was all a stupid, slapstick show;
but when he slew the parakeet,
his paw flew as a Dali stroke,
his claw slashed as a Zulu blade,
and no scalpel was more sure than his fangs as they sank.
Today,
a Greyhound express-
ly for New York
changed my cat, my pet, to rot.
Fur and rubber parted like lovers,
each scarred:
the tire spotted,
and my cat
a BLT
on toast.