The Cats of Kilkenny

by Brett Rutherford

Just like a bunch

of Hessian soldiers

garrisoned and bored

in rebellious

Ireland, to take bets

on which of two cats,

tied tail-to tail and flung

over a washer-woman's

clothes-line, which

would prevail -- the black

or the tabby?

Both toms

to make it worse,

they tore one another

bloody, no place to run,

no way to signal

polite surrender,

they howled and clawed

and howled

and clawed and howled --

until an outraged

officer came out

from his beer-stupor

and demanded an end

to the feline fray.

One lop of the sword

and both cats fell,

fled tail-less

to opposite points

of the compass.

When higher-ups heard

Mrs. Kelley's complaint

of two bloody tails

amid her husband's

long underwear,

the soldiers swore

to a tall-tale of tails:

the charms of one

lady cat, sunning herself

on a fence top,

provoked an act

of mutual cannibalism

between two Romeos.

"Ate one another, they did,"

one soldier explained.

Cat fight of the century

in fair Kilkenny,

completely consumed

they were, all gone,

all but the tails.