A railroad cat I knew a while ago, slung
belly emptied out of kits, took the night I met
her to show me and them the how and what
of finding food through our own resources
for when she was gone or worn down.

She'd drag a mouse center-stage, give it
the old Ouija eye designed to mesmerize,
leap and cuff in one fluid motion, just enough
to stun the smell awake so she could carry one
of her kits over to nose the proper food for later

when she was too cat-happy lazy to feed the no-
good nearly-growns. The railroad that hired
college kids to fill the jobs of the crewclerks
and freight car checkers on vacation
hired me because my father worked in

that same freight yard for twenty years.
He knew how to get me on the third shift.
The job taught me about late nights,
the taste of three o'clock heavy as lead
on the tongue, the jilly-joy of going out

to count the coal cars newly arrived,
the way dark sounds were always ahead
on the tracks, knocking on the grimeglazed
windows, making things that shouldn't do so
creak. I'd pretend the only good guys left

were me and the crew clerk for the main line
against the gangs of thugs and mugs
coming down the tracks on either side.
We spent the summer like quicksilver, we
and that railroad cat who had her litter right

before the tom cat arrived and ate three of them.
I didn't have a girl to tell things to, what I'd seen,
so I went out and got one, the standard issue
smart-between-the-ears kind, the way girls get
way before guys do from our quaint bringings up.

                                    Potomac Review Sept. 1999