I’ve never seen anyone take to a cat
the way you have. Three stillborn litters
she’s had, and you keep hoping she’ll give over
one fuzzy live one, one mewing paddypaw.
For such a growler, you are easy to this
fragile cat, who sits in the street,
mindless, who goes out and struts back
two days later, black tail puffed
from some night vision, or some Tom.
She shadows under the sofa, tail twitching,
scratches on the bedroom door at eight,
begs expensive food, whines and slithers
in constant heat. You stumble through
your days, insomniac, shoving at your own
bounds, and there she is, curled
and purring. Her spring fur flies
away like dandelion shafts. Your spring
hair grows long, curls out from your ears.
You don’t shave for days. Huge raccoon circles
spread under your eyes. You read
yourself vague. But at three, when you’ve
long ago kissed me and every wriggling,
talking thing asleep, out of the night sky,
Zang! That cat hits the screen like a bat,
splayed, claws into every nerve. You lumber
to the door and let her in respectfully.
She curls in your lamplight. She is, for you,
the simple purr of nature’s simple engine.
She sleeps when her eyes shut, she eats
when her stomach fusses, she makes love
when some blind itch shoves her, startled,
out the door. If her skinny self
concocted reproductions, the whole
sweet song would circle back around
and leave you pleased as punch
that nature knows so blooming much.