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A mysterious cat

Sam Silva

A Hot January

First publication: January 2007

http://badosa.com/p170

Gypsy Rose curls under a table

on a screened-in porch

during a night when the rain is constant

and dim lights flicker like a torch

...to make sure she is close

to my wife and me

...in homage to our civility

...while her kittens, oblivious, dart and play

in the well fed freedom of their day

fulfilled as it is

by night’s mystery.

She is sweeter than milk,

she licks and fawns

her kittens with care,

and does so with us

but with a cold eye

...the higher love being always there!

We are angels and swans

and she offers the air

that burnt sacrifice

of her strange feline kind

then, satisfied that fortune is fair

grooms and nurses

and stares

at the sky

...this cat’s eye has never a hint of a tear

and I wonder, numbly if it is mine.

A mysterious cat... and the mystery is fear.