Samuel Minier:

Writing in the Dark

Some call you Kitty, seeking to dismiss

your desires as cute meows, fluffy purrs.

For Kitties just sit prettily preening, adorable

and sunlit. They know nothing of night stalking,

backyard screaming, claws raking, tight

needle-teeth bared to lust, heat, and meat.

Kitties are too clean for such alley actions.

Some call you Pussy, seeking to demean

explorations as animal instinct, dumb rut.

For Pussies are soft weak things, to be stroked by

steady hands that know best. Curiosity kills, they warn,

and you bleed too easy. Your flexing thrashes need

something to bang against, restrain,

hold you down, least you run away and

are crushed in the rushing lanes you

try to cross. They never consider the choice

of self-sacrifice, the shuddering release of

straying outside and too far.

They see only disrespect, disobedience.

Stupid cat, you deserve to get hit.

I call you Bast, simply seeking,

approaching with cautious awe, sweat-wet brow.

For Bast stretches beyond clock and fence, back to

coiled stripes and thumb-thick fangs. You obey none

– least of all me –

so I worship you not as domestic decor, nor as

leashed lover, but as dangerously divine.

You cannot be coerced or bound,

for if I move too quick you snap, possibly claiming

flesh, seizing up and twisting away to branches high beyond me.

And so I approach you on my knees, respectful and

submissive, for I am courting fickleness,

cunning and wild, and your stolid ovals alone

decide whether I am

man or mouse.