At Nine
He draws the cats with hearts;
here wearing winter hats,
there flying spaceships.
After ten months the cats
still don't like each other.
It's important to him that they do,
at least in drawings. Too scary,
the world in other ways,
so the cats must "have love."
Balloon legs
dangle from oval bodies,
the essence of cat.
Before dinner he will pick up
the queen, hold her curled
spine down, feet helpless up.
Jonathan B. Aibel is a poet who spends his days wrestling software to the ground as an engineer specializing in quality and testing. His poems have been published, or will soon appear, in Rogue Agent, Main Street Rag, Constellations, Nixes Mate, Lily Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He has studied with Lucie Brock-Broido, David Ferry and Barbara Helfgott Hyett. Jonathan lives in Concord, MA with his family.