Mid summer and nighttime. A star has fallen and smashed the Franklin Ave Shuttle metro line at Dean street. Sirens–firetruck, ice cream–assault the darkness. Somewhere far away dogs are barking. Somewhere very nearby lovers quarrel. Both clap their hands repeatedly for emphasis, but they are not hitting each other.
Nobody can account for the fallen star, or why it is made of blue ice, or why there is a lion with enormous fangs frozen in it. But the crowd disperses because the soot of the rail is washing onto their shoes.
By the time the ice melted and the jaguar stretched barely thawed in its dirty puddle, the only witness was Denise.
Denise was up late again. She routinely sits on her stoop at two or three in the morning asking passers by for money to buy cigarettes.
“The nicotine is killing me,” she said. That’s how I met Denise. Now she owes me a dollar, though she didn’t have it on her last time I asked.
She told me that the animal had long fur that felt like wire: stiff, and so cold she did not feel it when its sharp points scratched her hand.
It has been hot the past few days, despite the rain.
The cougar from the blue ice roams freely now. I think it weighs almost a thousand pounds. It has moved into 579 Franklin Ave, which is a small vacant lot with a wire fence and a truck parked in it. A tall woman lives there, as well as many other cats.
The other cats eat the rats in the neighborhood. I don’t know what the new one eats.
