In His Hands

Robert Allen

April 6, 2025

                     My father had filled

the pail with cold water and brought

it to the table in the breezeway.

The seven kittens squirmed inside

a burlap bag, their cries unheeded.

The mother cat paced back and forth

underfoot, with wary but trusting

eyes. I asked if it would hurt.

“No,” my father said, “they won’t feel

a thing.” He opened the bag and lifted

the first kitten, a white one, out of

the bag and down into the water,

where he held it, squirming, for several

minutes until it grew motionless.

He brought out the lifeless body

and placed it, gently, on the table.

He did the same for the next two

kittens, one orange and another white,

both crying loudly in his hands

until the water muffled the sound,

and when the deed was done my father

placed them both beside the first.

He opened the bag again and let me

look inside at the remaining

four kittens, two calicos and two

tuxedos. “Which do you want

to keep?” he asked. “Take the calicos,”

I said. “They’re probably female.”

When the two calicos had been

drowned and placed upon the table

with the other dead, he took

the two live kittens from the bag

and handed them to me. “What

are their names?” he asked. “This one’s

Ruff and this one’s Ready,” I said.

Then I placed them on their mother’s

bed, where she joined them. After that

no one cried.

Robert Allen lives in San Antonio with his wife, two children, one cat, and five antique clocks. His poems have appeared in Voices de la Luna, the Texas Poetry Calendar, di-verse-city, and TPA. He loves cardio-boxing, hates throwing things away, and facilitates the in-person Open Writers Lab at Gemini Ink.