I see hits as being smitten
Behind kitten-mittens,
I feel smothering fur,
Of absorbing, abscessed pain.

(Our kitten
Had a horrible abscess
On his neck, it broke
About a week ago. But,
Another sore has developed, he
Did see the vet, last week…)

I see click-away tracking
As abhorrent, have only ever
Tracked myself, out of curiosity.
If I couldn’t track everyone,
I could not be truthful, so I didn’t,
I don’t. What I wanted, with tracking me
Was to see the e-mail notification, I saw ‘It’,’
And, kept it, awhile, before I ended up
deleting tracking me.
What was the point?

(I cannot force my words on any ears, won’t
Paternalize any fears of others; after all, I have them all.
Kitten fears, and mother’s years, religion’s tears
And all that is and all that ‘isn’t’, and, all of Everything
Of opportunities of youthful dreams and Pink
Floyd screams and Counting Crows and
Episodes of madness, in the form of mental
Pain, which are my only credentials…)

I see the Internet, and the gigs it gets, I see me,
And, wayward culpability. I see ads that circumvent
My instructions to my oldest daughter to be wary.
She is only fourteen, going on fifteen…

(I cannot help many with my words,
But, I can use my hands to wash Kitten’s wounds,
With hydrogen peroxide halved with water.
I salve the rawness on his throat, feel
Bubbles of peroxide cleansing him in my palm,
Combined with his heart’s pulse… The kitten is calm,
A beautiful animal of fortitude, and leopardese.)

While wrapping presents of irrelevance, I feel
My pulse beat in my neck, relevant to plots of
World-underdevelopment, to spirituality as dismay,
Which exudes its stench of collapsed fluorescents
Of bulbs smashed, whose fragments gave firefighters cancer…
I can only hope they meant me to feel safe, protected by
Equanimity, yet, how can that be?

(I knew I shouldn’t let the Kitten outside, but, he’s young,
And rambunctious, and had been feeling quite bad, he was
Neutered, and vaccinated less than a week ago. The young
Heal young, the old grow cold, there is no advantage
To beliefs, no hell’s relief, no cough syrup tonic to mind’s
Constant clearing of its throat… As I sat on the picnic table
And watched him play, I feared the Kitten would scratch dirt
Into his wounds, so I snatched him up, and took him to the house.)

To be protected by the very force which animates flesh,
To be aware of Chaos’s thrusts of fictional impunity
Creates a happenstance of unequivalance, a happiness
Of division. To do, Or, to die, that, my friends,
is the final question of the Universe. Actions
speak louder than words. A peculiar diversion to
my mind’s eye of worlds' words...

(The Kitten is in the house, clean and cleaning the bloody pus
Off itself, the presents of the present have been wrapped.
So, what do I lack? The Holiday seems moot, to me,
Every birth is a mystery, and a miracle, some miracles
Come in genetically warped packages of outer dullness
But, inner fire. The fire I feel, within my life-rights,
Shines and flares with Christmas lightings,
And, (im)possibilities.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 12/20/05