Bird & Dog Fancier, with a Few Cats Thrown In for Good Measure

"I always fancied that bird," he crowed.
But I said she preferred a good dog,
feline though she was. "Fancy that."
Well, no, I don’t. I prefer small turtles
or guinea pigs—creatures that don’t
require too much attention, that are
happy with the occasional lettuce leaf
and space enough that they need not
lie in their own excrement, as we would,
were it not for civilization. Of course,
civilization is not all it’s cracked up to be,
as every dog, bird, or cat knows—in fact,
the cats have never entirely abandoned
their instincts to rip things raw. Could
we relearn such brutality? I look around.
Perhaps we never left it behind—as she
knows too well, whenever he caws at her.