Domesticating Olic (the cat)

Domesticating Olic (the cat)
By: AJ Brantley

I know you don’t want to be here.
You stare at me like a dog
wide-eyed wanting desperately
to go outside where you spent your youth
patrolling a peaceful apartment parking lot
from pigeons and squirrels who feared
your confidence and natural efficiency.
But the streets are far too busy in this new place
so I’m asking you to save your life-ending bite
for canned meat and dry dwarf caricatures
of whole ocean white fish and turkey legs
salmon fillets and the severed wings of fresh
chicken. This gritty new substitute
taste as satisfying as morning spit. Here
I’m asking you to shit and piss
on gravel shards in a designated box
several sizes too small for you
in the corner of the bathroom. Sometimes
you forget to use the box and paw
embarrassingly at the unrelenting carpet.
This forces you to reconsider your understanding
of things as simple as the ground.
You are confused here. Likewise
the window above my desk has a screen
that separates air—something you never
knew was possible. In the mornings when I read
at my desk you can hear through the screen
the pigeons of your youth mocking your plight
though we both know you’re still strong enough
and quick enough to pounce them dead. At night
when I’m writing, you sit hopelessly on my desk
subjected to the judgment of squirrels. By word of mouth
your past has followed you here. They torment
you, I know they do—those
ghostly apparitions of those you've ended
squatting in the fog
chattering through the window
all night long of your steady and painful undoing.
Each night you turn to me and in a high pitch groan
beg for human mercy. But to your chagrin
my reply is a father’s warning to his child,
a preacher’s prophecy to his flock—
If I let you leave this place,
giants will crush you.