andreeasepi.com

The lascivious cat in the dimly lit window,

first floor, across the small garden.

Its stare nonchalant, immovable, intent,

drills into me all the important questions

about who and why and what am I going to do about everything.

I have a very distinct feeling the cat and I have been facing off on a dank summer evening

for nine consecutive lives, with only a faint lamp in an adjacent room.

In a long-exposure photograph, I would be a veil of shadow, moving,

coming and dissolving, resurfacing again;

the cat a solid axis.

Ah, the feline stealth! the cat remains a presence even as it disappears.

Ah, the languid chic of omniscient disdain! I squirm and it wields power.

Ah, the arrogance of eternity left to squander!

For nine consecutive lives, I have kept returning.

This is my last. The cat alone remembers me.

I cannot fool the cat. The cat is in on my secret.

It is in on the secret that life is multitude.

The lascivious cat in the dimly lit window,

first floor, across the small garden.

Licking its paw it shames me into unadulterated

existence.

The lascivious cat in the dimly lit window.

Slowly turning its back it makes me want

to prove myself.