In 2013, my black cat Jinx died of cancer. He was about seventeen.

One of the things I remember best about him were his visits while I was writing. I’d be in my home office, working away at the keyboard of my Mac, lost in thought. Jinx would sit in my lap, or curl up on the desk and watch me. Sometimes, though, he’d do more than observe.

He’d walk across the keyboard, his paws striking keys and leaving marks and spaces where I never intended any.

Instead of getting annoyed, I was always delighted. I’d look at what he’d typed and secretly hope he’d created some thread of meaning, even if by accident. I suppose I was hoping for a real-life version of the idea that a hundred monkeys, pecking away at typewriters, might eventually produce “Hamlet.” That never happened. Still, I thought enough of Jinx’s contributions that over the years I copied and saved the lines he created, including the ones that blended with a word or two I had written myself.

I kept them in a document called “Jinx’s Typing,” and I decided to publish it here. He produced these lines over the course of a few years, though I’ve laid them out as a single poem. Then I wondered whether Jinx was a poet at all, or whether these were really individual stories. That’s why I ended up calling it “The Collected Works of Jinx.”

Of course, he’s not the only animal said to have produced “work.” There are elephants who paint, for example.

When I look at these lines now, I find myself glancing down at the keys and picturing him again, adjusting the pressure of his paws, choosing where to step.

The Collected Works of Jinx

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