Arrogant Animal

I’ve come scratching
again,
prowling in the dark.

Where can you have gone
again?
Did you think
I wouldn’t come yowling
and mewling
after you?

Did you think a starving cat,
once fed,
would forget?

Did you think
me
inconsequential?

No.

I know that to be untrue.

Have you given me up?

Sometimes I stray
from myself.
Sometimes I think
I want from you
what I want from
no one.
Sometimes I think
I want from you
what I do not want:
collar, cohabitation, cat door
free still, sure, and yet--

And then when you are absent
and I have no lap to knead
I think--

well
I am a
sorry sight
when I think
you do not want me.

And what of it, then?

A good lay gone–
perhaps the best,
perhaps a chance
at something tantric;
a friend
I had hoped
to keep;
a prophecy
made
unsatisfactory.
Still true
I suppose,
just
shrunken.

I had hoped
for more time
and more of you.
Greedy animal.

I had thought
I could fascinate you
longer.
Arrogant animal.

And,
yes,
I did slink up
to a new man
or two,
purred against
a new post.

I tried,
yes,
to fixate
less
on you and yours.

Pupils dilated huge
with cannabis and tongue rough,
I have felt a hand stroke
the length of my spine
from top to tail
and each vertebrae
slink
eagerly
beneath it,
until my ass
strained
high.

I’d like to tell you more.
I’d like to paw
and nuzzle
into the spaces of you,
twisting
and sharing
our tales
like tumbling kittens.

Ours is not
purely animalistic.
You know that.

I will not
be made to feel skittish.
I will not
apologize
for the heat
with which I pursue you.

Just be grateful
there are no tin roofs
In this poem.