Dogs can have floppy or pointy ears.
Cats’ ears stick straight up
When I see the Batman logo I think it’s a cat.
He sits at the top of the stairs
Seconds after I hear the bed-thump I look
Those ears pointing up
Taking in all
Striking the pose in brindle stripes
This year’s fashion but always in style.
In rhythmic thuds he’ll beat to the bottom
Expecting something as we eat
Never put a cat on a diet.
It turned ours into a changeling
No fat happy cat he
Instead the green stare
The waiting, the resentful glance
The bad behavior now before
And after food
Spike. Pre-named
The SPCA prize. Who has
the bigger job there —
evaluating cats
feeling about for lumps
guessing age or Adam
the one who names the cats?
Our dog was named Aspen
“How do you shorten that one?”
A friend asked, “Come here Ass,
Come here Ass”
But Spike stuck. He was a friendly cat, good-natured
Diplomatic with the others
Happy to look out the windows
Of his “forever home”
Could we have offered him that magic?
There he stood small feet
Body erect stripes parallel and crossed
Tip of tail then head moving.
But with the diet he sat before the counters
Seeming to stare into the middle distance
But really just judging the effort
How high to chew on the pineapple leaves?
How far to the skillet with egg scraps
She won’t share?
He grooms so much his back fur is thin
Half his belly chewed bare
“He’s alright,” my husband says
But I wonder. Who is this being
I share my house with? What is
This creature prowling while I sleep?
