That grey cat never was right.
It used to crawl up my pants leg
and to sleep in my
underpants like it had radar.
It could have been the laser pointer
that made it's eyes cross and hiss.
Afterwards it wore a box
like a turtle shell.
It may have been the food.
Watermelon, cherries, ice-cream
whatever it could get it's paws on.
It had preferences.
It may have been the bottle of
whiskey I spilled on it it's back.
"Oh Shit!"
but it didn't seem to mind whiskey.
When I was a boy another boy
told me about jumping
off a counter top and landing on a cat's
back--breaking it. There was a girl
there who we both crushed for.
He continued that the cat
had "army-crawled" out of the
room and knew that I never wanted to
do that to my cat.
I only spilled bourbon
on mine and later screwed the
girl.
No, put side by side these things
complicate but do not explain the
character.
It was ordinary cat.
Not at all one of the pack.
It was a beast like
all others lost in
the trance of it's own seeking.
It had a rhythmic reptilian gate
oscillating under sable,
peering
beyond the window pane,
ancient with an ear on the
seminal thought
entangled in the ruinous idea
of companionship.
