Post 193 ...

The rhododendron leaves are slapped shut as I wander the sidewalk, avoiding hardened shells of yesterday's footprints. Around me are traces of the violence animals use like paring knives or tenderizers.

Tufts of feathers from a partial wing, and one wretched and bent little bird leg make me hate the cats.

At least once a week I slam the door saying: screw those F*%k head cats!

Why? Jerry asks.

My standard answer: dead stuff. They killed something again.

This week Jerry told me a story about something that angles down and slices life from tree branches and hollows. Life in its grasp shreds like paper, arriving dead on the ground.

He said, I saw a red-tailed hawk come out of the sky and grab a bird right out of the trees.

I had been wondering why the cats' attacks had been so unlike the usual unravelled purple strand of intestines. The chunks of animal left behind are more easily explained by the rending, desperate strike of a beak and talons reaching swiftly for a blinking, chirping thing about to end.

I do not live by my teeth, claws, and leathery, wet evisceration. Copper stains, and a warm, sweaty smell linger.

Charlie once told me that Lily smelled like, I don't know, she smelled like … squirrels, he said. Raw flesh was a salve to her bad pancreas, I suspect.

One of the vets told us that if we did not feed her enzymes to correct her illness, we could feed her pig pancreas to replace the enzymes her body lacked. Maybe hundreds of small squirrel pancreases were just enough while she was with Charlie.