TO A CAT
COME off it cat!
I am not fool though For that.
Sitting so prim with frilly bib and cuff Like some old woman with her mitted hand Folded in grim self-pleasure in her lap You sit and nap Beside the fire, sheltered in the dim conservatism of my fender.
You think I am a fool, One fool in many, Who lend myself to be your easy tool In a world you secretly can spin and rule Better than any.
And yet I understand That though you look so tender, So soft and pretty, such a helpless toy For children to delight in, you despise With yellow eyes, satanic amber eyes, Each boy That may upset your dignity and poise.
(Poor fools, they're only boys I) Oh, I have seen you waiting in the night, A shadow in the shadows In awful silence, rigid body spanned .
In evil beauty, veiled and sleepy eyes Burning and willing in a petrifying Hypnotising stare Until your prey was pinioned there And like a silent shaft of nothing light you leaped.
It had no easy way of dying: I hear it crying Still At your will.
You did not know that I was there at hand To watch you play your booty As a fisherman might play his catch.
You had no match In savage grace And beauty.
Come little cat, let me look deep Into your face That I may understand the mental quirk Behind your smirk.
Can it be That you have not at all attended me
And all the while you purred you were asleep
HAZEL WA ,
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