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CAT
WOMAN
Cats
exercised in the garage. Cats
kept
in cages along the walls.
Two
double mattresses pad the door,
keep
the locals insensible.
Once
a week she upbraids old Grumble
she
rents a small sub-arch flat to.
With
him gone she’d sell to a builder.
Even
his son says he’s no use.
On
the waste ground between the archway
and
dual carriageway beyond
she
chats up boys. Do they
break windows?
They
do nothing. Nor yet does
she.
Till
one of her daughters, well-dressed, sniffs
at
the house plants and wants money
for
her cracked-out sister who turns tricks
and
never talks to her Mum now.
What’s
she to me? asks the Cat Woman.
What
are my fine daughters to me?
Then:
out of hours at the old man’s door,
an
awful night, picking up stones,
fracturing
all his windows, letting
his
oil-fire oil drain from the drum
outside
his kitchen. Home through
the cramp
of
the outer city’s blank wind.
A
month. The man gone.
And a fat cheque
on
its way to her mad daughter.
But
the cats pay. Two are set
to fight
till
their ears gash and one is blind.
Alan
Marshfield
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