Thursday, Feb. 28, 2008 - 10:21 p.m.
The Lingering Epic of Jinky
******************************
Not a day goes by
when someone in town
dosn't ask me
if I found my little red cat yet..
No I say,
while trying desperately
to change to subject
i walk to the lake
and a lady pulls up in her car
cranks down the window
and enquires about him
no, he's still on sabatical
I go to get milk and
the night staff tell me
they saved my poster
from the end of month
general take downof papers
from the notice board
because they know
Jinky is still out there
and i would just put up another one
thats special consideration..
all the other ads for used trucks
snow ploughing services and church suppers
are just torn down and trashed..
on the last day of every month
Kids ask me at the corner eating smarties
if the magic cat has come home yet
I go to someones Moms house
and they have Jinky Lost poster
on her fridge amongst vacation photos
and dentist appointment cards
she swiped it off a hydro pole'
and has brought the search campagne
into her kitchen
she quizzes me what the reward is I advertise?
I say if you got Jinky
you can have whatever you want
whatever I have you can have
provided of course that you turn him over
I stop off at the only restaurant
still open in the winter'
to say hey to a pal
I saw through the window
sitting having a meal
and the waitress comes over
and asks if Jinky is back yet
it was she who held him captive in her car
and then phoned me to come fetch him..
yes she confessed she would have kept him
if i hadn't come right over
I buy a donut and the donut shop staff
enquire if the cute red kitten is back yet.
no he is not back yet
they start telling me again
how funny he was
running into the back room
and inspecting the latest batch of donuts
Ya , no
he's somewhere else right now
I don't know where
The nice people at the photocopy shop
watch me print off the new series
of Jinky wanted posters
and are good enough
not to ask me
how the cat finding business is going
I appreciate that more than they will ever know
Today in the mail I got a reminder card
from the vet
that Jinky should be coming in for
his health happinss maintaince shots
ahis name is highlighted in yellow marker
it just leaps off the page
and right into my eyeball
like a pine needle
I have to admit he delighted
a lot pf people over the summer
I am grateful he was here to watch grow up
and take on the wonders of life
from the tiniest frail kittenhood
to the awakening of the mighty red lion within
but he's not been by here
for almost two months
I have put up hundreds of posters'
and asked absolutely everybody
I got a call at 7 am last week
and a concerned mans voice tells me
he thinks he seen my cat
just like the draweing on the poster
but he was twenty miles away at
the Public parks
butterfly conservacy in Niagara Falls
that red cat there being real cute
and friendly as can be..
So I spent hours on the phone
talking to everybody who works
the winter hours at the Butterfly Conservancy
to make darn sure amongst
the leftover end of season cats there
do no not include Jinky..
red cats but not Jinky as I describe him
from photos I took
and sketches I drew of him
when he was asleep on my desk inches away
No red cats of that pattern
so that was my only lead in weeks
and it was a dead end
When the weather is nicer
I will return to the mystery beach
and the steel stairs and magic meadow above
where he loved to play and run
all spring summer and fall
because if he is within 50 miles of there
he will make heroic efforts to return
and when he does
i will be there
