3 poems
Winter
Adjusted to my schedule, my cat sleeps in the night and in the day attempts to dig the sunlight out of objects. Rugs, couches, if there is a beam of light she claws into it.
What of all the nocturnal animals? What of them? The ones with cosmologies that celebrate the cool cloak of shadow, the ominous snap of a twig and the dew. Those in terror and pain at the glare of light, the naked sun. These poor creatures in a world strong-armed towards eternal day, despised darkness.
No More
Today was the day. The international joint commission on commerce and environmental concerns put out the report: There are no more fish in the sea. There are no other fish in the sea. The sea is fishless. Now, I guess, we must say to our friends, “They weren’t that great anyway. Don’t worry. There are other human on earth. In your town, even.” When we wipe out chickens we will say, “Which came first, the adult or the fetus?” I guess we could say, “The adult or the egg?” It’s all so glaring. We have been prepared, for so long, since birth, for the end of fish. All the scientists and news media and our parents warning us and warning us. But no one warned us about our stifling new language.
Viable World Model
This egg. This egg we must hold it behind our backs. Each of us one egg held behind our back. If you drop your egg, off you go. Work and play and fuck and die. So long as you keep the egg held behind your back you do not. Those with no egg, those who drop the egg, the splat and crack of the egg let slip, no joy in the whole, satisfying sound of a dropped egg because you have dropped you egg and it is off to work and play and fuck and die.
When your child is born: egg. An egg is given to the parents. They must hold it, until the child can keep control of their own egg. Parent’s drop the egg? Well, the kid is straight off to work and play and fuck and die. Never had a chance at the egg.
When the eggs drop they stink to high heaven.
The few that have cradled behind their backs till old age are bent funny. The few that hold their egg to old age have never slept soundly, so old age comes quickly. But they have their egg.
Kathryn Kruse is a writer and educator living in Chicago. She is also the director of Residency on the Farm, an interdisciplinary artists residency. Among other places, her work has appeared on the walls of the I Hope You Are Feeling Better Collaborative Art Exhibition, on the stages of the San Francisco Olympians Festival and in the pages of Indian Review, The Manchester Review, Specs, and The Adirondack Review.