It was in the basement
where my sister and I - eight and six
respectively - chose sides. Catherine was
at my mother’s, and I sat at my father’s.
There the cats drew territorial lines
as well and beheld: a house divided
evenly.
I remember sharing my father’s lap
with the brown tabby cat who
didn't like to be touched, 'a shmoke
and a doke,' as my father said. Leaning
my head on the space between
his neck and shoulders, I breathed
his scent of musty books and aftershave
till 10 p.m. as Star Trek: Voyager bleeped
on the old TV.
There I decided that my father was a Vulcan
and my mother, a Klingon. To those
of you familiar with the Academy, you’ll
see their doomed fate clearly. To those
of you lacking, I shall say my father’s
stoism and my mother’s fever could never
be in a balance, could never intertwine,
less they be sharing an expensive dinner
on some island paradise accompanied
by a nice bottle of wine.
I like to think that vacation peace,
that honeymoon tranquility, that equal
understanding allowed my parents
to love before Catherine and I
learned to talk. Mostly me, I
suppose. We, our squeals,
our arguments, our play, our
bites, our laughs, our whines -
we took paradise and put up
parenthood.
But even before we youngens
matured and learned to speak
with our minds and hearts as one,
we had those simple moments
in the basement for an hour
later in the night than all our
classmates were allowed stay awake.
There, father and I (and reserved cat)
were piled, two on top of one and a foot
away, my mother and sisters (and the
better cat) side by side or leaning down
together.
In this dark wood paneled basement
with the dark teal carpeting and the
black window shutters shutting out
light from the stars and moon,
my family traversed the Gamma quadrant
in silent harmony. After our mission
was complete, I was carried upstairs
and Catherine crawled up them, on hands
and knees, matching the pace of
the good cat who would later join her
in bed.
At the close of the night, my mother
or father would stay in our room
and tell us a story or sing us to sleep.
They were never a duet and it was
more often my mother than my father -
perhaps it was those chosen sides
revealed by our seating arrangement,
I was always happier to listen to my
father’s low, hushed, quiver of a voice
and his tales of the adventures of our
two cats and what they do when we look
away.
But as the years past and we grew
(Catherine more so in height, I in…
call it: gene se qua) only my mother
stayed loyal to her place on the thick
green carpet, reading the American Girl
books or Harry Potter aloud. She became
much more to me than my rival and my
father was slowly pulled behind dark curtains,
one after the other.
Yet, here we all stand. Run
your hands across us, strum
your hands across us, strum
us like a guitar. Listen. Do
you hear it? Our lineage stayed
strong. 