Sex Kittens And Horn Dawgs Fall in Love

1 My Dubious Mental State Gets an Ass-Whupping from the Great Beyond Kitten meets Dawg. Soon, A warm yellow rain anoints The hydrant of love. "You promised me some animal poems, yes?" Mr. Frasconi is looking at me with one silvery eyebrow lifted a half-inch higher than the other. You would think I'd know better than to try and pull a fast one on a world-famous poet, but apparently, I don't. "Um," I say, oozing lameness. "That is an animal poem. Kitten. Dawg. Get it?" "It's a love poem, Fe-li-ci-a." He always gives my name four syllables. When you're writing a lot of haiku, like I have been lately, you automatically count the syllables in everything. Rice Krispies, three. Matthew Dwyer, four. Mrs. Felicia Dwyer, seven. Not that I'd really take his name once we're married, my mom would go all Gloria Steinem on me. Mr. Frasconi sees my mind wandering and repeats, for emphasis (insert Meaningful Echo Effect here): "A looooooooove pooooooooeeeemm." Poem, two syllables. Some people think it's one. Not me. Me, Fe-li-ci-a! Po-et-ess, Total Mess, Felicia the lovelorn. Whose name means happiness, HA! "This Kitten in your poem, she is you? And the 'Dawg'--interesting spelling--still the same boy? The one with the rabbits?" Mr. Frasconi can never remember Matthew's name, which is odd, since he's been read-ing my unrequitedly-in-love-with-Matthew poetry since late September and now it's February, and that is like ten zillion poems by now. But I guess I don't call Matthew Matthew in the poems. Usually it's just "him," or "you," or "O, perfect one!" or "unattainable boy of mystery." "And the 'warm yellow rain'-hmmmm." Yes, thanks to me, Mr. Archibald Frasconi, mega-award-winning poet and currently a Master Mentor at the Manhattan Free Children's School, is being forced to contemplate the symbolic use of pee-pee in a love poem. Poor Mr. Frasconi. Maybe I should explain the whole Sex Kitten and Horn Dawg thing to him. But a poem has to stand on its own, as Mister Master Mentor himself has often told me, and after some initial resistance I've come to agree with him. You can't follow your poems around explaining them to people, it's just impractical. So, as they say in the cartoons, I shaddup. Mr. Frasconi leans back in his chair. "No more love poems for a while, okay, Fe-li-ci-a? Look around. Observe. There's so much to see." There are private schools in this great city where all the students are bored fashionistas and all the teachers are boring fascists. The Manhattan Free Children's School is NOT one of these schools. What the MFCS is, instead, is a small private school housed in a crumbly-pretty, pretty crumbly old brownstone near Gramercy Park. And we never call it the MFCS--at least, my friends and I don't. We call it the Pound. Why? Because we are the Kittens, the boys are the Dawgs, so we go to the Pound, get it? And, frankly, it's just too hysterical-making to think of ourselves as the Free Children. I know I go there because my mom is stuck in groovy mode (can somebody please give peace a frikkin chance already, so the poor woman can MOVE ON?), but being the Free Children is too granola for words. We'd much rather be the Sex Kittens, thank you! Kitten Directive Number Infinity: Kittens Are 4-evah! Speaking of which: "It's a perfectly NICE poem. It's just a little--you know! Gross!" Jess says, helpfully. "Ewww," adds Kat, cutting to the chase. We are sitting in our favorite booth at the Moonbeam Diner, Official Restaurant of the Sex Kittens of New York City. Kitten Directive Number Twenty-three: Any Kitten can convene an Emergency After-School Kittensnack at the Moonbeam to discuss matters of personal urgency. Her littermates will listen, advise, and pounce if necessary, to perform the Kitten HeimWood, Maryrose is the author of 'Sex Kittens And Horn Dawgs Fall in Love ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780385902960 and ISBN 0385902964.