Dead Fentanyl Cat

There was a dead little cat
Splayed in the middle lane of Washington Street
While I passed

And there was a man clumped to the curb
Pinching his chubby chin
Between his thumb and index finger
Like a final played poker chip

His eyes as flattened as aces on cards
In a corner bar across the street
While the police rubbed his shoulders and pencil notes
From the rotten sounds ground between his teeth.

Another man a driveway down
Has a nose displaced a million miles from his face
Smeared into his hanky.

Hoping no one notices
A woman wiggles in the wind out back
Like a Fentanyl clothesline clipped with a menu
Her age is a choice.

A third man on his back naps
In that front yard
Clutching his hands
To a samurai sword’s shiny blade

Slippery and stood straight up
From under and through him
Bubbling
Like a park fountain of roses.

Did it all start this morning
In their tiny crooked house?

Their cat scooting from underneath
A missed kick and through a crick
Of an unhinged front door
Out to the busy road?

If that for them
Was quite simply the last straw?
Copyright © | Year Posted 2019

Poem

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