Summer of 82
By Jennifer Chapis
Rarely did we enjoy a family night out
without later arriving home to Alex
mounting some female from behind—
his colossal cat balls glowing like owl eyes in our headlights.
This cat needs “fixing” my mother decided,
and who could blame her with a dozen females whining
at her windows, clawing our screen door
and the neighbors chattering.
Alex later slipped from his cat carrier
with testicles smaller than the breathing holes.
Then he vanished altogether.
We were not a family who hugged.
Our instinct: laugh instead.
When he brought live lobsters home for boiling
my father set them loose in the house first to scare us.
He meant no harm of course,
one in my sister’s bath for kicks.
Later, when we ate them I cried
partly because it was funny.
There are a thousand ways to vanish.
Alone with the empty spot
the headlights mark, you see yourself—
crouched, gray underbelly hovering above the ground
without touching.
So what if my parents killed our favorite cat for being an inexorable stud.
Why is that a poem?—
Family piled tightly in the car together, Alex
unabashedly giving it to some cutie.
Each of us caught in the dark and lit up—
eyes unblinking yellow.