Tibby

TIBBY

Your murdered psyche lies ten yards away,

watch it evaporate! These surfaces are hard.

You are one of the ones whom none

can help, for whom there's nothing.

Lie on scarred concrete, feel the deadly cold

and keep tabs like a vivisected tabby cat

that's mute from a horrible lesion.

You know neither ease, nor pliancy, nor charity,

it's all dark brick. Your stare is tearless and beseeches

other people's cushioned charity

to ease your ache on cold hard brick,

the blood so hot in your hair. Your stare

keeps tabs like a vivisected tabby cat

that's mute from a horrible lesion.

This is the wild context from which you come -

your psyche ten yards away – to ordinary conversation!

How carefully you watch, how gingerly dispose your aches

on the scarred concrete, the cold hard brick,

and feel the blood fresh in your hair with every answer -

tense and taut as a vivisected tabby cat

that dreads receiving further horrible lesions.

Because you're vivisected, disembodied,

the bricks are cold, the surfaces are hard.

The people hear your yowl and, seeing how horrible

your case is, shut their eyes and stop their ears:

the little they dare to know will never make you warm and whole.

This is the living death of a vivisected tabby cat

whose horrible lesions tell the people far too much.