Another cat poem. I don't know about it at *all*. I feels narrative and
sentimental, not to mention flat, but I needed to try to work with Miles
again to change my tone. It probably will lay on a disk or in a drawer.
VETERINARY (June 25, 2002)
Miles, black cat named for the musical black cat, Davis,
has something wrong, his liven enzymes are shot.
So I have left him at the vet to be examined and God knows what else
while I go on a job interview on Staten Island
and thence pray at Dorothy Day's grave.
And when I get home the doctor's British accent
is unexpected because the doctor himself is unexpected.
What *is* expected is the vet tech: it's some sort of infection,
here's a prescription, medicate him and let him rest.
Instead this from the vet: "There is a tumor and the x-rays show it
wrapped around his liver. I cannot open him
to biopsy it, because the shock of the cut
under general anesthesia will kill him straightaway."
He has read me Mile's death sentence.
He might as well be wearing a white judge's wig.
I am a slow study but then, surprised and shamed, start to sob.
I have no control but am contrite and embarrassed.
"I'm sorry," I say, "I promised myself
I would not do this." The vet does not say
"Man up" or "It's better for him," he lets me cry it through,
then gather myself to arrange the time,
after hours, for the process to wind itself down.
I come to Miles with an Irish whistle and
play "Amazing Grace." But he could give a shit.
He's annoyed because there is an IV feed
taped to the vein of his rear leg and he is trying
to get it out. I am just in the way.
When the vet pumps the barbiturates into him,
Miles simply topples and dies at once.
Real death is a quiet, almost sacramental, business.
We are the witnesses in an execution chamber
to a holy moment, and not just for us.
I look up and tears are running down the vet's face.
Months later I ask him "Was I seeing things or were you
crying that night." "I was," he says.
"It's not hard to do after 20 years,
if the animal is old, terminal, and worn out. But
after an accident, abuse, or in a young one,
it's still very hard. I believe Miles had life
left in him but he had no choice but to die."
I imagine Miles as another of my children, this one with
four legs, still not seeing it coming. The brake failure,
the drive-by. Years later I would surrender another caat, old and gone,
who welcomed her release, but Miles was surprised by a terrible grace,
entry into a world without pain, his thread cut not too soon but in a
moment of accident.
(for Dr. Rodney Boden, VMD)
|