calender is funny and not funny
today. A fireman has climbed
down the tree-leaning ladder 
with a cat in his hands. 

Now calm down there, ma’am …
your cat’s gonna be fine …
just fine

he says to the old woman 
he is handing the cat to. 

But the old woman bouncing
on her toes is a dog in a coat
wearing an old lady mask

and I smile, and then see
beyond, behind, and under. 

How many people, systems,
and contortions handed me back
to my torment after I had scrambled
up a tree in temporary escape?
How many times did the torment
dance on tiptoes, in its disguise, 
being the good guy, the sane one,
the logic and love all plastic-faced?
Nothing but hunger under
the coat, tail wagging?

How many times did I climb
down the trunk
and hand myself back?

I did a dream study one time, 
set my alarm 3 times a night
for months to wake me so I could
speak whatever dream I had been in
into a recorder. And I discovered
a male narrator in my nightmares. 
An American, not anyone
I recognized. But he would 
describe the situation 
like a nature documentary.

One dream, I was hogtied on my side
in an airplane hanger, a jet
engine pointed at my face, about
to be ignited.

So she can see her death coming
the narrator said above the scene. 

I wriggled from the ropes and ran
through the surrounding corn field. 
I was bent in half, my spinal cord
being somehow severed so 
my top half wouldn’t stand upright.

I was flush with the feeling
that I might get out of this
as cornstalks swayed around me.

Little does she know that this
is part of his plan, to destroy
her more completely upon
re-capture, after thinking
she was almost to freedom.

And I stopped, bent double
in the corn field knowing
there was no escape, 
my whole body full of defeat
and surrender, numb
with absolute powerlessness.

And that is this comic cat moment,
pulled down from her branch,
a man suppoesedly helping,
handing her back to the dog
behind his kind disguise,
giddy with all his power.

She is not clawing or fighting.
She is just looking, numb-faced
at the plastic human mask
the beast is wearing.