Maple

THUD!
Your foot hits the bottom of your cage in distress,
The cage I put you in, and God I'm so sorry.

~~~
You tremble atop a mix of litter and your own urine,
Knowing I am about to punish you further.

I scoop you up as gently as I know how, and hold your body firmly between my arms.

I hold you down and force a little tube into your mouth as you writhe violently as in an exorcism.

The medicine oozes down your chin.
I've done it wrong.
We have to start again.

You look at me with bulging eyes,
The medicine already beginning to crust on your fur,
The abscess under your chin throbbing angry and red.

At last a dose slides down your throat.
You roam the shoebox room while I scoop the litter and urine.

You jerk upward and into the cage willingly,
Let me pet your cottony neck

With a butcher's knife if I wanted to.