Writing about cats will cast me as crazy.
Smart’s paean to God and Jeoffry was a prayer
penned in an asylum cell. All the women
I know say they fear becoming cat ladies. And
Broadway aside (or is it proof?), Eliot’s cat
fetish is a catbox mystery to me. Still,

consider my cat George, every-day named,
servant to no one, seventeen, who shares my birthday,
thinning ragamuffin, begging to be lifted to his bowl.
Now sitting before me on the table licking white paws,
waiting for my scratch under his jaw, his chin,
settling into a soft purr, haunched, fur a little ragged.

He steps back, kneads, licks a paw absently.
I smile, reminded, it’s not just about me.

Originally appeared in Nine Muses Poetry