April 18

Cats? You ask me to write about cats! I always write about cats. I just had to go for a medley. Some of these are even from this month's challenge.

Random lines about cats



A white-masked cat, stretched out for cooling
atop a sepulcher, sees me and vanishes.



not a pizza delivery: a bomb
or the cat escaping
into dark streets where grandmother
leans against the utility vehicle



Used bookseller celebrates
the knowledge that remains
on the page, crinkly, sniffed
by white whiskered black cat.


A cat comes sailing down before your eyes.
His owner's scream after.
Everything that day is flattened and you know
you must get to a land without ledges.


The sound of ultimate satisfaction, the purr,
designed so that mama knows her kittens are
receiving milk, does not always mean all is well.
A dying cat may purr. Though perhaps this does
mean that all is well, in Julian’s cosmic sense.
Which is why her icon shows her with cat.
Which is why she fits in so well with my family
photos, all of which show my mother, holding
various cats—gray, black, calico.
One can date the photo by which cat is held.
The last photos feature the orange striped cat,
just like the one she’d had when she was young.
When he died, she said no more.
When dying, humans do not purr.





Aubade with Cat Lady


The breakfast call of the cat lady penetrates the block,
screeching into bleary toothbrush wielding mother’s morning,

setting loose a stir in shrubbery as delicate paws emerge, whiskers
sniffing air laden with odors of bacon and Dial soap.

“Here kitty kitty kitty,” the hearty soprano resounds, bounces
off stucco and brick, slips through Venetian blinds, insidious

as the felines who stroll, checking the scent of rivals
on leaf and chair leg, wary of the hedgehog

who lives under the sagging porch
with its bundles of newspapers,

stropping her pajama’d legs and offering up purrs,
a chorus of rhythmic lapping, their hearty response to her song.

The cats don’t mind a chill day, their coats protect them,
but against wind, they are powerless. Especially with long fur,
which ruffles so easily, the wind must feel like a thousand nasty
hands rumpling his fur and exposing his skin to the chill breeze.
They were out a short time and are now very contently curled up in the warmth of the living room.


I looked at Her and trotted to the door,
one meow and I was out to play.
Now I am out. But what for?
I want in and right away!