My beautiful, bowlegged, jade-eyed tabby
was lounging on the patio
when a sparrow, swooping
down from the blue,

thumped against the screen door. And there
it thrashed, its claws
caught in the mesh.
How swiftly all of this happened

from where I sat on the living room couch
reading about the war—
the cat darted, leapt, his outstretched body
rising and rising

until the sparrow fluttered
in his jaws. No time to think—
the newspaper skated
across the wooden floor,

the door screeched along its track,
my hands clamped around the cat's throat
and squeezed, blood shuttling
quicker through my veins.

Drop it, I commanded,
and he obeyed. And I let go. And the sparrow
scuttled on the concrete
before ruffling a line in the lawn,

then sailed over the trellis
mobbed with lavender flowers,
over a rooftop, the black arrow
of its shadow sliding across the shingles.

The world slowed then, the blood cooled.
Far off, wind jostled wind chimes—
the sound of a broom
endlessly sweeping broken glass.