MARILYN JOHNSON

It would be like the liver or kidney
only it would filter grief.
It would swell every time it heard
something sad. Unlike the heart
it could fall out when it got too heavy
and dumbly find its way back,
a cat on an incredible journey,
the long way back.
The stink of lilacs tells it when to stop.
It sits on the other side of the highway,
under a clean white veterinarian's sign.
Through the pine trees it watches
a driveway, a landing strip
for grief. Mangy now, stuck with burrs
from the journey, old, it's a beast
the neighbors recognize. The vet
crunches across the gravel of his parking lot.
He leans over the sad, full thing.
With his knife he finds the hurt
and lances it. He fixes it
right there by the side of the highway,
where the witnesses stood.

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This poem appeared in Field (#28).
Poems from Field (#66, 67, and 71)
are available from Oberlin College Press.