It's Still Life

The Old Woman and the Scholarly Cat

(or, No Matter How You Deny It, The Universe Gives You Cats)

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[I. THE DENIAL]

the old woman
with no cat
shakes her shiny spade
at the neighbour’s tabby—

“I have no cat!
I want no cat!”

the cat,
entirely unbothered,
stretches across
the Lesser Periwinkle
like a poet
reclining on laurels,

blinks slowly—
then quotes The Odyssey
(translated, of course—
he may be a scholar,
but he’s not pretentious):

“Of all creatures
that breathe and move,
none is more insufferable
than man,”

—then licks his paw
and adds,

“Homer obviously
never met you.”

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[II. THE IRONY]

the worm,
still pressed against
eternity’s gate,
sighs:

“You have a cat.
You just don’t
feed it.”

the crow
drops another beetle—
(the interest
on his earlier loan)—
and mutters,

“She’s the sort
who’d deny the sky
if it licked her
on the nose.”

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[III. THE PROPHECY]

the teacup shard,
now wedged in the fence
like an ear
where all the unsung poems
nest,
whispers:

“One day,
she’ll trip over
her own No,
and the cat will catch her
by the scruff
of her stubbornness.”

the old woman,
hearing none of this,
yells at the robin:

“And YOU—
stop looking at me
like I’m late
with your rent!”