I Love Cats

how they crown
me cuddle my cheeks
how one thinks
she's a hat

even the tiny dark one who
hisses and slaps and runs
cries for something or someone
alone facing the corner as if
there's a phone there as if
someone's in the other corner
listening

even her as she lifts her tail
a palsied stick sprays
bitter piss over the white
covers the white pillows so
no matter how much bleach
faint piss colored continents
ride the white ocean of my bed

even her with the others their scrabbling
attempts to bring me down to
trip me hauling left right
at the ankles of the giant I am

even the old lady with her patches of
white over black like fleeting clouds
the vomit she hangs
from the doorways and chairs her eyes
so big if you look too long they
take up the whole room sweep
themselves into your lungs and brain
then she startles you with a
quivering short cry

even her and the kitten that won't stop
even then I still
even then always I still