Morning Grand Prix
By Rick Eschholz
I suspect that the spirit of the late Brazilian
Formula-One champion, Ayrton Senna,
overtakes my two cats briefly at exactly
five-thirty every morning. That is when
they kick into high gear. A spectator
in the grandstand that is my bed, I hear
them flying around the house. Their
cadence, paws alternately gripping
for braking power and then the bite
of acceleration, tells me that now they
could only be circumnavigating the
distinctive turns of Interlagos, the setting
for, perhaps, Senna’s most heroic win
in the Brazilian Grand Prix of ninety-one.
After a gearbox failure left him with
only sixth gear, Senna collapsed at the
end of the race. His muscle spasms
visible on the podium, he could
barely lift his trophy overhead.
My cats, too, slump the rest of the day,
and collapse on the couch in the sun,
their calm demeanor belying what comes
out at dawn, what rests in the heart of any
champion: something fierce, untamed, wild.
Check back for future installments of 'cat-inspired poetry!'
