Sunday Night Poetry

CAT IN AN AFTERNOON

He approaches, impudent as vinegar
He owns his own conduct
And he’s not my friend.
It seems so only because I need
his moody company

I’ve always been a friend
To those who build mud-castles on beaches,
Afraid without their inventions,
I would disappear.

He stalks the baseboard, regards the screen.
I am not here, except to feed him. Worshipper
Of yarn and mote, he is one syllable.

I wish I’d learned Latin or something
Useful like planting orange trees.
I always decline in late afternoon.

Sometime his fur, sometime his claw,
The soft, the sharp enigma.

This door, was it here last week?

                                    --S.K.