The Cat Considers Her Poetic Companion

by T. ALLEN CULPEPPER

For Kendra and Blue

She seems obsessed with writing down her thoughts,
herding them into lettered lines instead
of letting them loose to frolic, fly aloft,
believing they aren’t real until they’re read.

Human thoughts apparently are tame
enough to keep inside of word-walled boxes,
unlike feline thoughts too wild to name
that we stalk or sleep on or chase like foxes.

I can’t understand this human need
for art created at freedom’s expense,
reducing the magic to rabbit-hats, creeds
zipping belief into plastic bags—nonsense!

Yet I tolerate her writing, however misguided,
because when she does it, she sits still and strokes me idly.

Ω

T. Allen Culpepper is a faculty member in the English Department at TCC.