One Bad Poem


I wrote this a couple weeks ago. Not sure that it works, but a friend has been urging me to put more of my daily writing here. So here goes.


"You can't sit here," I tell the cat.
"I'm sitting here." I move him
to another chair, which has to be
equally comfortable, but before I can settle down
with my notebook and pen,
my cup of coffee, my scattered thoughts,
he's back. He's a black cat.
He came to us as a kitten
on my youngest daughter's seventh birthday.
He sits imperiously on the footstool,
watching me. We woke this morning
to snow and I am playing hookie
from my paying job so that I can sit here,
scribbling, which is my real work.
The cat gets bored, curls at my feet
and goes to sleep, which is his real work.
The only sounds are the furnace clicking on,
the lap-lap of the filter on the goldfish tank,
and the scritch of my pen
across the paper. Now it seems
I am dreaming the world
into being. A dog barks.
When I glance out the window,
the snow has stopped. I turn back
to the page. I draw blue letters
across line after line.

Comments

  1. Everything about this poem works for me. I like how the kitty's tale looks like a big, black question mark.

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  2. I felt comforted by this poem, I liked the click of the furnace, the filter on the fish tank - it all shows the comfort of a home and a beloved cat's kingdom.

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  3. I'll pass along to Emma your comments about the question mark tail and the "beloved cat's kingdom." He certainly treats us as his subjects.

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