Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DEATH COMES TO AN ALLEY CAT, by MARY C. SLEVIN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DEATH COMES TO AN ALLEY CAT, by                    
First Line: All sickened, sad, revolted - angry, too
Last Line: Above the little cat.
Subject(s): Animals; Cats; Death; Dead, The


All sickened, sad, revolted -- angry, too --
Today I've groped my way through ill-done tasks,
While out of sheerest pity, my wrenched heart
Has gone from me and in the gutter weeps
Above a little cat.

And somewhere on this Sunday, March thirteenth,
(The year is Thirty-eight) there lives a man,
A savage, who is merciless and cold,
Unfretted by this hard crime which he did
Before the ninth hour of the day was reached.

The cat had left the curb to cross the street,
All unsuspecting, when the black car came
And, never faltering, went its mean, sleek way
And left the cat a small, pathetic heap,
Quite motionless, except its twitching tail,
Which quivered like a frantic semaphore
And sent abroad a frenzied call for help
In this calamity; to no avail,
For aid, however skilled, could not help here.

Then, under certain doom, the injured cat,
With fearful, awkward effort, tried to rise,
And stood upon its fore-legs, but behind
The other legs just lay there in the street;
And move I could not, so I stayed and saw
The cat perform a horrifying dance,
A dreadful travesty, a Dance of Death.

Around it trod, around, and both small paws
Were raised together and together dropped;
The cat a painful circle hitched and inched,
And its numb hind-parts, helpless, dragged behind;
And all the while its poor dazed head hung down:
The heavy hand of Death was laid on it.
It paused and, on its fore-legs braced, it made
A quite tremendous effort, and at last
Was standing on all feet, but all the while
Its poor dazed head hung down.

Around it trod, around that fateful ring
On wooden legs which jerked and jerked and jerked
And stiffly made the dance's awful steps;
It paced those monstrous measures, which grew slow
And slower still, until at last it drooped
Low, and lower still, and there it crouched
Above its feet, and then at last I saw
How, imperceptibly, the dance had ceased,
And heavily its poor dead head hung down.

And so I've groped my way through ill-done tasks
While, out of sheerest pity, my wrenched heart
Has gone from me and in the gutter weeps
Above the little cat.





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