Cats Poem by Cynthia Gallaher

They are the clowder of panthers
that fled the jungle as cubs,
traveled north to the Lower Nile,
and swore never to grow up,
but soon, marked with a
brilliant circle of earring,
and reverse spirals
of castration like eunuch slaves,
sat together in a place
where water on all sides
made islands
of their new domestication.

Still, you couldn't stop them
from walking away from pharaohs
whenever they felt like it,
jumping on the queen's pillow
like mavericks,
or pouring off roofs to open porches
like black tears.

Perhaps it was worship
they really deserved,
or mummification
to keep them in line for eternity,
shrugging off the underworld,
they went on and taught
the Romans how to bathe,
and the French
to use their tongues.

The cat asleep
on this rented rug,
breathing to sounds
of splashing cars outside,
dreams on in a human world not his,
with a chance to travel south
missed the past eight lives.