The cat sits on his haunches and eyes me warily
Knowing it is my intent to
Take a rake through the forest of his knotted fur

Ah to be trusted so, so a cat who loves me
Without qualification because I am the source of his food
And shelter and sustenance of all other kinds
Will not flee when he sees the metal gleaming in my hand

Not at first. When he sees my smile is not sincere and
I call his name repeatedly, he knows my intent
Is less than love and just simple practicality
Although I would argue differently

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, I would sing
And wonder if the cat knows how good a singer Kelly is
Or that pain, administered for Godly reasons,
Is not always such a terrible thing

You will feel better at the end of things, I say
And you need this rough threshing to divest
You of hair and clots which keep you
In audible sighs of grief at night

I did not choose to be your deliverer, I tell the cat
But such is the bane
Of those who seek to own an animal that believes
You are his possession and not the other way around

He is old. So what? He snorts, leaping from my grasp
And hurtling high across the couch, disappears.
Behind the couch lies a nook of my own dark device
A narrow causeway where humans in a state
Of ancient disrepair such as I do not dare lightly go.

So I will bide my time and watch the goings-on on CNN
Knowing the cat will get hungry at some juncture
And once emerged from his lagoon
Climb happily into my embrace believing
I will never do him my necessary and long-plotted harm

And somewhere in my brushings, to which he will raise
Loud protest and from which he will attempt again
To flee will be my wondering
If such beneficence is not a near metaphor for happenings
Long ago and far away.

When I was gladly her possession and I thought
Pain was the toll you paid to traverse love’s
Broken and ironic highway, but unlike the cat,
I willingly returned; Begging
For her to flash the rake, over and over and over again.

05/16/2016

Posted on 05/16/2016
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch