cats and history

while the hemingway cats stood
in the footsteps of ernest
and drank water from the old man's urinal
spanish soil bled

ernest broke bread with my father and his comrades
at valencia
in the shadows of a firestorm
from franco's insurgents, hitler's luftwaffe, mussolini's legions

the international brigades threw their bodies
at fascism
the trenches filled with the first martyrs
of the holocaust

ernest got drunk at valencia and filed
his report with a new york newspaper
the hemingway cats drank
from the old man's urinal

--- e b bortz

 (published in ordinary shoes, #2, 1997)