May 30, 2009

For Bosquiat

Unbeknowst to me
I have become a cat person.
Helping a friend
take her pet to the vet,
I held the
ball of fur and fight
through thirteen traffic lights.

Perhaps it was the eleventh light
that the cat looked up,
and somewhere in its
mustard eyes there was
a quiet dignity,
a reserved confidence,

an understanding that though cat,
there is something of gods
in there,

a dusty history, shelved in the stripes
that line the tail
that curls about my arm like an asp.