Litter Box Poem by Jefferson Carter
Litter Box
My wife asked me this morning
if I’d ever cheated on her.
My ex-wife called this afternoon
& asked me the same thing.
What’s going on?
That new Italian movie
the art film crowd adores,
the characters hysterical, nearly
operatic, their marriages dead
or dying. I imagine all the couples
sipping cappuccino after the movie,
nibbling biscotti, that close
to confessing their own infidelities.
I love my wife. I don’t whine
about my latest chore, cleaning
the litter box four or five times
a day. I can imagine one
of those histrionic Italian husbands
fuming, yearning for his mistress
as he kneels by the reeking box,
scooping cat feces & urinous clots
of litter into a plastic bag.
The second I’m done, our old cat
comes running. Otherwise,
he limps from room to room, moaning
like the ghost of some animal
whose bladder burst.
I love that old cat. Most nights
he snuggles under the comforter,
buzzing between me & my wife like a
space heater I need to repair.
I love that old cat. Most nights he snuggles under the comforter, buzzing between me & my wife like a space heater I need to repair. ...curious, curiouser, these lines get me to wondering about a couple of things: Do you love the cat mostly because he comes between you and your wife? When you say he's like an old space heater you need to repair, are you refering to the distance created between you and your wife? Or am I thinking too much?
No woman wants to share, it is an innate trait....your wife and Ex all asking the same question, ' if you'd ever cheated on her.
Uche, I don't have an ex. i made that up, just as I make up all kinds of stuff about the " I" point-of-view used in my poems. A good poem does not need to be autobiographically true to work.
This is one of those poems I can read again and again and always drawn something from it. I love it.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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4/16/2024 9:30:46 AM # 1.0.0.1119
another mishmash? ? or is it all true, and, if so, DID you? ? and how about your answer for the ex? boy WOMEN are NOSEY! ! since i've heard you can be quite critical of other poets, let me ask you this: is the SENTENCE starting with...... That new Italian movie.... really a sentence? AND do you care? i read, in a dictionary i think, not long ago, perhaps under the word AND, that there has been quite a difference of opinion regarding whether one should be allowed to start a sentence with AND. the members of the dictionary 'committee' were divided, but i believe the majority approved. hurray! what do you think poem hunter members? i love urinous clots.... i mean the use of the phrase, not the object. i mean it is almost dinner time and why am i even thinking of urinous clots.? by the way my computer's spellchecker indicates a problem with URINOUS, but who cares? the poem is very engaging. i like it. bri (i will add to my poemlist......although i believe i read something by the author in which he seemed to criticize another poem for being prose-by-any-other-name. this also seems like prose, as do many of my poems...... except that i use a lot of rhymes and at least TRY to make my poems look like poems...ya know? , as in stanzas of four (usually) lines separated by double spacing.