try reading your diary aloud

on the occasion of the adoption of moxie catherine azazzel rutabaga, &c., Bukowski's the cat:

the hunter by my window
4 feet locked in the bright stillness of a
yellow and blue
night.

cruel strangeness takes hold in wars, in
gardens–
the yellow and blue night explodes before
me, atomic, surgical,
full of starlit
devils...

the the cat leaps up on the
fence, a tubby dismay,
stupid, lonely,
whiskers like an old lady in the
supermarket
and naked as the
moon.

I am temporarily
delighted.