Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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I've fed Old Tom for many years
with never any thanks,
not one meow.

He arrives at night with eyes ablaze.
I crack the door and slide a tin
of Fancy Feast

across the deck toward him like a puck.
He hunkers on the railing till
I lock up. Then he pounces.

The tin's a mouse, you see,
and now he knows
it's time to eat.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.