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Jane Zwart

 

Augie

for C D Finley

 

When we learned it was a son,

that swimmer grinding his heels 

against my uterine wall, perfecting

flip turns in a kiddie pool, I, 

 

who loved our cat, who insisted 

we keep him even when a black light 

revealed the Pollock he had pissed 

in the basement, who paid a bundle

 

to untangle his bowel; I, who never 

left town without penning a treatise

on his care and could see a smear 

of tom in the street and weep 

 

for the resemblance only—

                                                      when we

learned it was a son, I asked if one

could name her boy for a cat. No, 

my husband said. So I asked if one

 

could name her boy for a dead cat.

Of course it was a joke, this betrayal 

so wicked and quick that I cried.

It was also how I turned into a mother. 

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