Why Kitties

By Jim Parks

The mother cat, Miss Rosabel, ignored me as I scooped the kittens up and put them in the tow sack. She rubbed against my legs and shot out of the shed door, chasing a hoodoo.

I came out into the sudden sunlight and chattering summer cicadas of the back yard. There she stood in her four-year-old sun dress, curls brushing her bare shoulders, her dirty, naked baby doll tucked under one arm.

"Where going, daddy?"

"I'm going out to play," I said, opening the pickup door.

The kittens were mewing inside the bag, crying out, tumbling over one another. She looked very curiously at the bag, dug a bare big toe in the dirt.

"Why kitties?"

"I'm just playing with them."

"Me come, too." I set the bag down at my feet. The kittens were already scrambling like mad to get out. They came crawling out of the bag one by one, their tails held high.

She came running into my arms, laughing. I threw her up, up in the air over my head, catching her and hugging her.

"Me love daddy."

"Me love you, sugar. Me love baby girl."

# # #

By: Jim Parks published 11/07 in "Writer's Corner," The Republic of Ireland, Marie Lynam Fitzpatrick, editor