cream cycle

One day you're
minding your own
beeswax
and voilá,
a wildcat
shows up



you have no choice
but to love him,
savage as he may be.
(pictured on their patio: Cookie and David's bobcat)

It all began
for me
with that picture



painted by Dale
twenty years ago.
Check out the li'l dahlink
peeping over my shoulder.

Two decades
and two understudies
later...
the first two couldn't keep their lines
straight...
the third
arrived demanding
star treatment.



I spend inordinate amounts of time
writing cat menus in my sketchbook.
I make it easy, just check yes oder no:

_____oui _____non

preceding each entreé,
appetizer or beverage on the list.

pages fill quickly with non after non
checks.



I dream of opening
the first kateteria,
"Guesssss Who's Coming to Dinner"
in New York

and of making the cover
of Biznessweek with its
and my brilliance.
Katomat.



Everyone
will pounce on
the chance
for kitty
to dine in such fine
design.

Catering to
hoity-toities of
utmost taste and
comportment,
no gangstas
allowed.
which would keep
mine off the premises;
glad i own the place.

Cuisine
guaranteed to
please
the best cons
on the planet,
meaning mine,
who will
open
a grand total of
two
katomat doors
to obsession,
either:

1.light cream, only one kind
is acceptable...no cheapo
will do. and,


2.solid white albacore,
NOT the skanky store kind,
brand name only
because it costs the most.

It's all very bad business, I know.



What comes 'round again is such mystery, ain't it.

sistahs

"Truth is eternal, knowledge is changeable. It is disastrous to confuse them."
-Madeleine L'Engle

Herewith a confidential glimpse of the letter i imagine sending through USPS.
But since i won't, maybe i'll email it to my peeps this week like this:

"hey sis,
just wanted to let you in on what i want to say but am too chicken to send to another sis. thanks for listening.
party on & xox,
mk

'Dear Hillary,
Once upon a time, I waited in line for you to sign a copy of your book.
I still have it here in the studio, but like many things,
what seemed so important to have back then doesn't stand so powerful for me now.

Don't get me wrong- I admire the strides you've made fighting the good fight in the public sector. Your strength, conviction and moxy have served to create a potent persona and figurehead for thousands, maybe millions of sistahs.

But Hill, your hardest fight is finally playing out.
This is the one you bet the farm on.

Putting up with terminal bad-boying and societal embarrassment from your man....makes people still wonder why you didn't stand up and walk straight out that door to the big rock candy mountain of self-re-invention.
It would have been a hard, maybe impossible climb back up, but it woulda been
your climb.

Despite the perhaps inevitable political suicide, you could've been alive in so many other ways.
Many have climbed that Everest before you. It is a terrifying, death-defying trip and some slip off the edge. But many more make it back with miraculous tales to tell and a rebirth in the making.
And with the determination to: enable no more, no way, no one;
to stay raw and no longer rise above intellect
at a cost to instinct.

Too bad we weren't your role-models; we were waiting in the wings.

This fight is about lessons learned and lessons ignored and lessons that come around again if you didn't get it the first or second or hundredth time. and about false gain.
We fight it but we know it
deep in the gut while the mind plays broker.

Just wish you hadn't bet the farm on him.

Yeah, shoulda, coulda, woulda; easy to say.
Well, if you need a sister's shoulder to finally cry it out, Hill,
we're here for ya, day or night.

Yours Truly,
a fan who would bet on you
if you were free and clear ' "