Blood Brothers by Lynda Nash

Blood Brothers
by Lynda Nash

The cats are in the garden.
Playing,
They jump at flowers,
Roll in dirt.

One kills a bird.
In turns they bite,
The taste of blood makes them frenzied.
Faces ecstatic
They gambol in the grass like spring lambs.

The road claimed Elwood.
(Grass in the garden was not enough.)
Creeping illness took Jake; his kidneys failed.

Among the flowers,
Trapped by the dirt.
As free as birds.
Jake and Elwood, the cats,
Are in the garden.