By John Jay Speredakos

Schnitzel is my cat. He wants the good stuff.
He wants to sink his wobbly canines into the flank
of a fleeing caribou and bring it down personally.
He wants to choke lightly on the late-afternoon dust
kicked up by the flailing hooves of his desperate prey.
Not for him the aluminum aftertaste of the Open Can.
The kidney-friendly, renal-supporting, veterinarian
recommended swallow of bland that constitutes
the diet of the challenged, the compromised, the one
foot in the grave. To strip a carcass down to its essence,
down to a splinter of bone, a whiff of intestine, a fragment
of its former self. A shadow of what was, and will never be again.
To ingest, digest, and divest. That remains his all-consuming
goal. And a cat should have goals. Beyond a well-groomed
sternum and a perfectly manicured footpad. And of course
the requisite twenty-three hours of quality slumber. A cat should
devour for the sake of devouring all that can be devoured.
All warmth and joy, laughter and light. Everything bright, vital,
and alive, destined to be none of the above.
That is a goal for a cat. And Schnitzel, resplendent in his
Maine Coonness, understands. For life is to be swallowed whole.
Regurgitated if necessary, consumed in installments if required,
but most definitely swallowed whole, kicking and screaming,
in all its bloody, sweaty, glorious, and temporary self.

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John Jay Speredakos is an actor and writer with a BA from Muhlenberg College and an MFA from Rutgers University. He has performed on and off-Broadway, in films, TV, commercials, and radio, and is a proud father of Calliope. Recent work appears in Atticus Review, The Coil Magazine, Bluestem, West Trade Review, Red Flag Poetry, Gravitas, Shift, and others.

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