Found a Manuscript

Found a manuscript in a forgotten file on my computer.

Here’s one of the poems from it.

SWING

There’s not enough room

My mother says, annoyance breathing

Out over her teeth

To swing a cat

I say, self-doubt inching

Forward like

An inchworm

I’ve never seen an inchworm

To swing any cat

One must have some form

Of algorithm

Taking into consideration

The arm length of the human

The body length of the cat.

It is indeed small

Crib-like in its structure

A built-in concrete slab for a shelf

Where Miriam, the maid used to sleep

No matter how tiny that single room appeared

We accepted it as a living place for her

Who dared not question the conditions of pay

We gave our dogs more space

Silently she would clean our house,

Watch over my brother and I

Laugh and smile with my mother

Sleep on a hard concrete slab

In a room so small

I wonder in this new age of equality

Whether all the servants’ quarters

Have been destroyed or

Perhaps renovated for an extra toilet

In houses too big

Where dogs live comfortably

And the cat clawed walls

Still stand, testament to

When Miriam loved us.