1.
There's a gray-and-white
female.
She likes people, even
with the scars on her face,
her burned ear.
2.
There was a thin
male.
He'd disappear for weeks,
having adventures.
His teeth stuck out of his face.
They were very big and white.
Looking at his teeth
you'd think he would live
a long time.
I waited for him.
Three weeks,
six.
At night the coyotes howl.
The sound is long and rasping
like a pulled-apart machine
still whirring
while it bleeds oil
3.
Long after I moved out of her house
my mother and I were talking about
reincarnation.
I asked her if she thought
the lives remembered each other.
She looked for a long time out the window at a
mama cat
with her two kittens
(they go everywhere together at that age), said
I hope so
4.
An old male hunts.
In plain sight
he walks
slowly and deliberately
toward a crowd of quail.
They are gone like vapor,
their warning screeches filling the valley.
Satisfied, he lays belly-up
in the dirt.
He's still got it.
The ants claim the food I keep leaving out
for him.