Matias Aguayo - "Rollerskate". Cat made of grated ginger; chase her across town. Flit over fences, dive under gates, climb up ivy, slip into open windows. Steal silver necklaces, little diamonds, whole satchels full of catnip. We give lovers tiny kisses as they lay in their beds, breath rising & falling, then me and my cat of grated ginger leap onto widowsill and out, skimming the clothesline, gleaming in the white sun. Slide down eaves onto an Almost skateboard with Bones Swiss bearings, Venture trucks, four Ricta All-Stars. And oh, me and the kitty-cat glide. [buy]

Men Diamler - "Black as a Cat in the Morning". My dog is made of hematite. Hematite is a mineral, a heavy form of iron (III) oxide. Max is steel-gray and reflective. He is a labradoodle. He has a hardness of 6.1 (Mohs scale). Max is heavy, heavier than I can lift; he moves when he wishes to move, and he does not move when he does not wish to move. Normally he is copacetic. But this morning - oh jeez. I woke up late, had just ten minutes to walk him before catching the bus to work. We walked, as usual, past the Gamba coffee-shop and Fairmount Bagel. We walked past the Académie Plateau and the triplex with the glowing cube. And yet just as we turned the corner back onto Parc avenue, outside one of the shops that sells baby clothes for Hasid families, Max stopped. He smelled something. It was a spot that just looked like asphalt, normal pavement, but Max smelled something. He halted totally, lowered his twitching nose to the concrete. He sniffed, sniffed, sniffed. I let him be for a while. But then we needed to go. We really needed to go. And Max wouldn't move. My hematite dog would not budge. He was still sniffing the asphalt, where some quartz schnauzer had wee'd or something. "Come on, Max," I said. "We gotta go, Max!" After a while I raised my voice: "MAX!" I tugged at his leash, put my whole weight into it. He didn't seem to feel it. He was blinking and sniffing, very cutely. "Max, PLEASE!" I said. I nudged him with the toe of my boot, then the tip of my finger. "MAX WE GOT TO FUCKING GO COME ON," I said. I shoved him. His hematite exterior reflected me, greasily. "MAX JESUS CHRIST." People were staring at me. The owner of the baby clothes store had arrived and was unlocking her door. "Max," I hissed, "come on please please come on I'll bring you back here later want a treat i have treats at home please max." Max gazed at me for a second, then lay down. I just about lost it. I looked at the time. I looked at the white sun arcing over my head. I squatted down beside him. "Max, I'm gonna lose my job if you don't come along." My hematite dog sneezed. [MySpace / thanks, Milo]

(photo source unknown)