i am moving with the sudden clarity of a three-legged dog,
trying to write poems with levity      instead of ooze       to be less
cynical.                   The cat yelps, prowling inside he is

young,           and he wants to feel the sun,   greedy. Or the
cool thin night, coiled for cold blood, stretched and ready     but
I won’t let him.   how long     are the years in here for him,     how

do I tell him           the last guy died,   on his first run.   Then, curled
up, sprung      in the fenced sunlight.   It is not so bad.    No shallow holes
dug beneath dancing wisteria.             No, it is not so bad,    stretched

in  the sometimes sun      of the prison yard.    I stop writing to make
a steak sandwich.     Well, you make it for me—three legs,  after all.
Kangaroo blood dripping       behind my teeth into throat.              Then

in the night, a visitor       fragile and sleek     tiny, weak      from beneath
the neighbour’s house—empty.        Cautious     but willing,       not travelling
alone.              See, it is not so bad.           It really isn’t. It’s not.        It isn’t.