it's all about time of possession, technique, knowing when to turn back

It's Monday Night Football, 

cat-style. One jumps on the newel post, 

a green or purple fuzz-ball dangling 

from his clamped mouth

small mouse, cheap

toy stolen from my daughter's craft kit.

The other waits

for the leap, the chase

down the stairs, the lift

from the rug

on the mezzanine—all air, baby!—

the chase and eventual takedown

downstairs. There are a few

punches thrown, a few words exchanged.

One of the snatches up the ball

and takes off again.

It's all about time

of possession, technique,

knowing when to turn back, rising

like a bear behind a blind corner.

They are lucky to be alive,

these brothers, found

orphaned in a field, only

three days old and still

blind and deaf and mewling

for mother, who'd been struck

by a car. But they are

of Midwestern stock, hardy

boys with a lineage 

of barns in their blood, a history

of sidling, and stalking mice.

It's there in the muscle memory,

the twitch of haunch

and tail, pursuit and pursued,

in the slotted aperture

that opens in celebration

of Now, the blood-

race, iambic pulse of

the game    the game    the game.

[Steve Mueske, 'Why There is Always a Ball in Their Water Dish', from A Mnemonic for Desire]