Charles Bukowski — The Mockingbird

the mockingbird had been following the cat all summer mocking mocking mocking teasing and cocksure; the cat crawled under rockers on porches tail flashing and said something angry to the mockingbird which I didn’t understand. yesterday the cat walked calmly up the driveway with the mockingbird alive in its mouth, wings fanned, beautiful wings fanned and flopping, feathers parted like a woman’s legs, and the bird was no longer mocking, it was asking, it was praying but the cat striding down through centuries would not listen. I saw it crawl under a yellow car with the bird to bargain it to another place.