Cat Roshi

 

 

The phone interrupts me

 

While taking sleeping lessons

From my cat

It is an invitation to a stampede

Which I decline.

 

Distracted from Cat-mind

I transcribe some television commercials

For therapeutic purposes

Then spend a few minutes juggling feathers.

 

Down below the old woman

Is playing the vibraharp again

And singing her adaptation

Of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy.

 

I throw another economics book 

On the fire

And regard the cat.

 

She has sealed herself off again

Impervious to modern art

Presidential campaigns

And free verse.

 

The phone is ringing

I am studying the cat

Catching on, perhaps,

But it is a long way back.