the smallest feline is a masterpiece— da vinci/i hear my cat crying

by Rob Plath

i hear my cat crying 

in the little room 

where they’re taking her blood 

but i’m not allowed in 

& she doesn’t understand 

why they’re doing this 

holding her down

sticking needles in her hind leg 

stealing her blood 

but still she doesn’t scratch or bite 

doctor or tech 

she just cries 

& i think about how i used 

to violently vomit 

every morning 

for a year

when she was a kitten 

& how she’d push 

the bathroom door open 

tiptoe in 

& stand there checking on me 

& i want to run in there 

pull the needles out 

& pick her up & hug her 

& run to the car 

& never return 

i once read that centuries ago 

it was thought that tears 

were made from broken parts 

of the heart 

& i remember as my mother lay dying 

the blood that often trickled 

from her right eye 

like some myth about a statue of a saint 

in some tiny village somewhere 

& now as my cat cries 

& days later when on the phone w/ the vet 

as she explains about bone marrow biopsies 

& oncologists 

i don’t believe in lacrimal glands at all 

as wet threads of my heart 

rise up 

& collect in my eyes