Boris Read online

  buzzing the street yesterday?

  Did someone—

  say, that calico

  four doors down—

  tell you, Stay in, man.

  Something is going down.

  And though you

  are willing to die in

  an eagle’s talons

  or a coyote’s jaw

  or even by car,

  you are not going

  to let a pack of

  house dogs with

  their decorated collars and

  jingling tags,

  bellies full of

  Kibbles ’n Bits,

  take you down.

  Cowards.

  Following the pack.

  You are more than that,

  Boris, and you know it.

  Discreetly you slip inside

  and listen, silent,

  to their hysteria.

  7

  They told me at

  the shelter, Boris,

  that your name before

  was Hunter.

  And I thought, Yes,

  a nice upper-middle-class,

  designer-label sort of

  name.

  Not a bad name at all,

  though not one I’d choose.

  So I named you Boris instead,

  and you knew who you were

  within a day.

  You knew that you

  were Boris.

  Smart kitty.

  But even though you

  answered quite nicely,

  you let me understand,

  over time,

  that you had, in fact, been

  Hunter and that,

  like one of those mysterious men

  on the soaps

  with the hidden past

  that won’t go away,

  you were still

  that guy.

  Because it didn’t take

  long for the

  half-dead mice to start

  swooning all over

  the patio,

  the beautiful, delicate

  birds to seemingly

  drop dead on my steps,

  the goldfish to disappear

  from my neighbor’s pond,

  and the one big rabbit to show up.

  The dead one.

  Hunter.

  I’d thought it was

  old New England Hunter,

  prep-school Hunter,

  that particular shade of green Hunter.

  But it was hunter Hunter.

  Didn’t ring a bell

  until maybe the fifteenth

  mouse.

  Well, someone tried to warn me, Boris.

  Whoever named you first.

  Remove all bird feeders was

  the message.

  But I am slow and naive, Boris.

  You knew that,

  didn’t you,

  coming right away

  when I first called your name.

  So, Boris it is, you must have thought,

  tossing your old name tag off the side of a bridge.

  But, like those nervous, troubled characters

  in nineteenth-century literature,

  every now and then

  you are that other guy.

  That one who lives in the cellar.

  Hunter.

  8

  We heard a new cat

  was moving in next door

  and we thought,

  Oh no.

  That cat is doomed.

  Boris has been sitting

  on the next-door deck

  for two years, we said.

  He’s tagged it

  again and again

  with his

  instantly portable

  cat spray.

  Everybody listen

  loud and clear:

  That is Boris’s turf.

  The cat is doomed.

  Desperate, we took you to the vet

  for some plastic claws.

  Nice little fake plastic claws

  that stick on over

  your lethal ones.

  We could not

  take the chance

  that some night

  the new neighbors

  who were foolish enough

  to move next door

  with a cat

  (what were they thinking?)

  would show up on our steps

  with a bag full of

  shredded fur and teeth

  and eyes

  that used to be

  somebody named Fluffy.

  What else could we do?

  But you managed, didn’t you,

  Boris,

  to still climb trees

  with your sharp back claws

  while we waited for

  the new cat to move in.

  Then finally, one day,

  he arrived.

  Harvey.

  A six-month-old

  piece of gray dust ball

  named Harvey.

  On your deck, Boris.

  Stupid kid.

  We waited to see if

  you would tear him

  to bits with your teeth.

  Annihilate him

  with a million plastic jabs.

  Drop him

  like a mouse at our door

  and look for praise.

  Harvey, we feared,

  was not long for this world.

  We were wrong.

  Boris, you sly cat,

  you poser,

  you swaggering

  bowl of jelly.

  You adopted him.

  You adopted Harvey,

  and mornings we’d look out

  and there you’d be,

  teaching Harvey to jump,

  teaching Harvey to pounce,

  playing chase through

  the tall reedy grass.

  That deck, that infamous deck,

  became where you two

  sunned yourselves

  after the fun and games,

  and we could not believe it.

  You liked him, that kid.

  Reminded you of yourself

  when you were just a

  young upstart

  looking for a role model.

  And maybe you’d heard

  Harvey’s sad story.

  About being out on the streets

  of Nashville,

  begging.

  He got to you, didn’t he, Boris?

  So when the plastic claws

  dropped off after

  three months,

  we didn’t replace them.

  By that time you were

  going into Harvey’s house

  for supper

  and sleeping with Harvey

  at the foot of their bed

  and generally just

  being a big pussy.

  As Harvey grew,

  he looked just like you, Boris,

  sleek and gray

  and green-eyed.

  No one could have told you apart

  if not for Harvey’s bell.

  And when he moved away, Boris,

  you left a big bag of

  treats on Harvey’s doorstep

  and a note that read

  “You’re a good kid,”

  and you wished him luck,

  one guy to another,

  sure he’d be okay:

  You taught him

  everything he knows.

  9

  You disappeared

  for ten days, Boris.

  And for nine of them

  I imagined

  what it must have

  been like for you,

  being cornered by a coyote.

  The wild fear.

  The first broken bone.

  The small yellow cat collar

  with “BORIS 962–7899”

  in Sharpie,

  left behind in the leaves.

  I hated for you

 
to have to go that way, Boris.

  Though I’d seen what you’d

  done to mice

  and I knew it was justice.

  Still, maybe there was a small part of me

  relieved

  that I didn’t have to have

  a hand in your death.

  Because I know what it is

  to take a dying pet

  on its final journey,

  how each passing moment

  counts so terribly,

  and how that crescendo

  toward death

  builds and builds

  until one can hardly bear

  another second of impending doom

  and utter end.

  I know what it is,

  that awful sudden instant

  when the breathing stops

  and someone is gone forever.

  And one wants to die, too, then,

  so as not to

  feel anymore.

  I don’t want

  to live that again.

  I want everyone I love

  to die in sleep,

  and preferably

  after I’ve left the planet myself.

  So, Boris, as I looked

  for your remains

  beneath shrubs

  and in ditches

  when the dogs and I

  were out for our walks,

  I knew that if I found you dead,

  at least you spared me

  being part of the thing.

  You were good enough

  to do that for me.

  But on the tenth day, Boris,

  you came home.

  There you were, sitting at the patio door,

  waiting for me to get out of bed.

  After ten days missing,

  you came home.

  Skinny.

  Hungry.

  A bloody front paw.

  And as I carried you inside,

  I knew

  this had been no

  mere adventure.

  Boris, you had won

  a battle.

  You had won a battle

  in the thick forest where we live,

  and there was no witness

  to your bravery.

  But I know.

  I know, Boris,

  that somewhere

  a coyote wanders,

  one eye dangling from its socket,

  and tufts of

  gray fur in his jaw.

  You are keeping closer to home now, Boris,

  and that’s good.

  Don’t feel sheepish.

  Don’t think we care

  that the forest

  no longer calls to you.

  Because you are a fine boy, Boris.

  A cat of cats.

  You survived.

  10

  I thought that maybe,

  after the last dog

  passes away,

  I’ll get a condominium.

  (Which I’ll prefer to

  call an apartment,

  though technically

  it would be a condo,

  even if I cringe

  at the word.)

  I didn’t want to be

  that girl,

  the one who

  lives in a condo.

  I’m the person

  who baked bread

  in college,

  wore long skirts

  and boots

  and didn’t own

  an iron (still don’t)

  or nylons (ditto).

  I wanted to

  be a cool hippie

  but I’m not really.

  I am too misanthropic

  to live in a commune,

  and the phrase

  “Peace and love”

  grates on my nerves.

  Still, I have always

  known for sure

  I am not a condo girl.

  Aren’t condos for people

  who drive Buicks

  and collect glass figurines?

  Those people who think

  Vegas is a destination

  and Friends is funny?

  But I am tired.

  Tired of weatherproofing

  and leaf blowing

  and WD-40.

  Tired of owning a house.

  Wasn’t I supposed to live

  in one of those

  beautiful brownstones I saw

  in 101 Dalmatians when

  I was six?

  That’s who I wanted to be.

  That pretty woman,

  that urban chick

  with the brownstone

  and the cool dog.

  Well, where I live

  brownstone means

  condo,

  and that brings me

  to you, Boris.

  Already I can hear you

  saying, No way.

  No way are you going to

  live with me on the

  fifth floor with

  just a pathetic little

  balcony to sit on

  day after day

  and not a clue

  about how to operate

  that elevator out

  in the hall.

  I want to be a

  cool, urban chick,

  Boris,

  and you want a lawn.

  You win.

  11

  It’s clear by now, Boris,

  that we shouldn’t have

  bought that kitty video.

  Look at what it’s made you:

  an ottoman potato.