"Felicissima"

Always dear but curving close to the door, cats like this can peel the light off a star--

slip it slyly under an eye, & still sleep

A calico cat, e.g., dreams and moves outdoors,

ears smartly smoothed flat to the head, mouth the usual moist pastiche of lips & razors

If she appears to be a bit too august now, after a splendid backyard shunt, and sits purring,

million to one she's got the dismembered jowls, tails to prove it, the grip relaxed--

freeing by degrees the bloody jay beneath

A sated cat's a very odd thing, indeed

& lies in odd places:

on vents, in closets, over tawny pillows And even as she lifts herself up from my lap,

it's to peer stonily in direction of the door-- sleepy, wild, free & every bit the

equal of me

who am just too big to eat