UNHOLY SONNET NUMBER ONE
My bowl of lamb and gravy from the can
appears each morning when at last you rise.
An hour ago I batted at your eyes,
and it’s been two since first the birds began.
My brother has already fouled the pan;
you slept right through his scratching and his cries
(their tone suggesting something oversize
and fetid, for which you’d require bran).
Your feet are on the floor. That’s a relief.
Your awkward fingers soon will pop the lid
I yearn for, giving proof to my belief
that God made humans well the way He did.
You Big Ones, lacking claws and feline verve
were clearly planned to open cans—to serve.
—from Rattle #32, Winter 2009
Tribute to the Sonnet
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Mollycat Jones (Christine Potter): “Once I believed that poetry was something to distract my human companion, so I could knock the pens off her desk and swish my tail under her nose. That was before I discovered metrics and rhyme. Christine mostly writes that ridiculous vers libre, for Big Ones as silly as herself. I write for felines everywhere! And I write in form because the anarchic spirit of all cats is an explosive force that needs something powerful to contain it.” (web)
