the cats of my alley
by caitlin meredith
From my office window I have a front row view of the backyard wildlife. Mostly, the scene is dominated by squirrels. The way they leap from limb to limb in the canopy of pecan trees makes me feel like I’m at preview night for the Mighty Flying Squirrel Circus. My fists clench as I hope for the successful completion of a particularly daredevil maneuver, sometimes wanting to rise for an ovation in awe of their acrobatics. My fists clench for other reasons too, though. As the tender fruit starts emerging from the branches of the fig tree in the center of the yard in early summer, too young and small for me to yet pick, I watch in horror as the squirrels razor their tiny teeth into one after the other of the bright green pearls. Those days I wish my backyard was a shotgun shooting range, not a circus tent.
Other than the squirrels, blue birds and bright red cardinals flash and flurry from the trees to the grass and I once even saw a possum rooting through my compost heap in the middle of the night. And then, of course, there are the cats.
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