Cat Musings

If I were a cat who walks by herself,
a shadow leaping from a fence
to luxuriate in the long grass,
I would sniff flowers as I passed.

I would greet you with a head butt,
having left a gift on the door mat;
however, you would not appreciate it,
but grimace and refuse to eat it.

You would fail to understand that I
am feline aristocracy; a mouse, a bird,
a butterfly are honourable oblations
to my surrogate human family.

Imagine me, a curled comma
in your lap, the rumble of my purr,
your fingers stroking silky fur,
while I dream of feline poetry.

Kim M. Russell, 18th April 2024

On the eighteenth day of Na/GloPoWriMo, at NaPoWriMo we are writing poems in which the speaker expresses the desire to be someone or something else, and explains why. We have been given two possible models for inspiration: Natasha Rao’s ‘In my next life let me be a tomato’, and Randall Jarrell’s ‘The Woman at the Washington Zoo’. I have taken two old poems, one of which was previously published by Visual Verse, and reworked them into a new poem. The photograph is of our cat Luna.

29 thoughts on “Cat Musings”

  1. A curled comma. Dreaming feline poetry. I think I so like that idea. And then certainly the word war would never be in the vocabulary… now this is something I would love to be too. How wonderful, Kim. I really dig this poem.

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