the 'i have to tell you something' suite

i have to tell you something

across the street from my old apartment
there are three building in a row and one of them
doesn’t have a real door it has plywood that
used to be red but now it’s white.

there is a friendly man who lives there.
when erica came home yesterday there
were cop cars everywhere
and the whole block was cordoned off
and she had to prove that she lived on the block
in order to get home
where the air conditioner dripped into the bathroom
and the cat had not been fixed yet.










it was not drugs it was better than that

in the building next to the friendly old man there
is a woman with a mullet. she was standing there
with high black socks and those orange foam rubber shoes
and an old dirty baggy t shirt.

in her house there were 8 feral cats.

into the back yard she had sent years of torn paper.

one day the old man was at his window which is six feet tall
and saw 8 cats peeing on his window
because they were walking on the paper.

the fourth of july was coming.
he called the police
in case there was a fire.

one month later they came, and they tried to get the 8 feral cats
and get rid of all that paper.


then they found out an old boyfriend
had deeded her the building next door
and there were in there about 30 empty cages
and feral cats
everywhere.

the policemen left the house.
they paid neighborhood children to bring them ice cream on sticks
and waited in shifts to collect the cats.










a series of addendums

the cats were never collected.

before being interviewed by the people filming the removal
the woman changed into a t shirt for the band poison.

the air conditioner in my old apartment got fixed.

the sun is setting
and everything is good here.