Lynne Bronstein came to LA in the era of album rock and wrote for the underground Los Angeles Free Press. For five decades she’s supported herself as a journalist while contributing to the literary community with four books, poems and short stories in numerous magazines, readings, and organizing poetry events. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net Awards and her short story “Why Me?” won a prize in the Poetic Diversity Short Fiction Contest. She has poetry forthcoming in Lummox, Chiron Review, Poetic Diversity, and Sparring With Beatnik Ghosts, among others. She’s in her Golden Age.
Cat’s
Game
Billie is sitting at the foot of a tree.
Craning her neck upwards
She can see what I can’t see.
Something in that tree
She wants to catch.
She gives me a sidelong glance
As if to say:
Don’t cut in on my territory.
Well, Billie, I wouldn’t think of it.
The birds, mice, and lizards are yours.
I have other prey I’m stalking.
But I can appreciate how you feel.
Even if it bothers me
That you tear out the bird’s heart,
Rip off the mouse’s head, the lizard’s tail,
You take pride in your skill,
Your triumph over the odds.
You’re never as happy
As when I’ve seen you on the porch,
Looking at me with a prize in your claws,
And meowing hello: looka me, looka me!
So gosh darned glad Nature chose you for a predator.
Bad luck for me that I have your same lust
And no stomach for the kill.
Billie is sitting at the foot of a tree.
Craning her neck upwards
She can see what I can’t see.
Something in that tree
She wants to catch.
She gives me a sidelong glance
As if to say:
Don’t cut in on my territory.
Well, Billie, I wouldn’t think of it.
The birds, mice, and lizards are yours.
I have other prey I’m stalking.
But I can appreciate how you feel.
Even if it bothers me
That you tear out the bird’s heart,
Rip off the mouse’s head, the lizard’s tail,
You take pride in your skill,
Your triumph over the odds.
You’re never as happy
As when I’ve seen you on the porch,
Looking at me with a prize in your claws,
And meowing hello: looka me, looka me!
So gosh darned glad Nature chose you for a predator.
Bad luck for me that I have your same lust
And no stomach for the kill.
© 2016
Lynne Bronstein
Lynne Bronstein was a Featured Poet at the September 2016 Second Sunday Poetry Series
Lynne Bronstein was a Featured Poet at the September 2016 Second Sunday Poetry Series