I'm going to read a poem about a cat.
But of course, it's not just an ordinary cat.
I'm afraid it's a sad cat, a cat that's dying.
It wasn't my cat.
I just was watching it and taking
advantage of its last days.
"Cat, Failing."
A figment, a thumbed maquette of a cat, some ditched plaything,
something brought in from outside.
His white fur stiff and gray coming apart at the seams.
I study the muzzle of perished rubber, one ear eaten away.
His sour body lumped like a bean bag leaking
thinly into a grim towel.
I sit and watch the light degrade in his eyes.
He tries and fails to climb to his chair,
shirks in one corner of the kitchen,
cowed, denatured, ceasing to be anything like a cat.
And there's a new look in those eyes that refused to meet mine
and it's the shame of being found out, just that.
And with that loss of face his face, I see, has turned human.