Cat Visit — Lawrenceville
Kinetic cat slips down abdomen to earth,
her only business now the exit
imperceptible to human eye.
A tennis ball sticks beneath the chain-link barrier
she scrapes under, into the Volvo car lot.
Trots on lightly;
black orange white, tan-tufted cheek,
sucking in distances.
Cat that licks your hand eludes you,
good-will gone at tongue-done time,
job completed; palm sanded,
sealed with varnish.
Is that her tail switching in a timothy brake
beside the brigade of Volvos?
Perhaps it’s an item on newsprint
flapping in the wind.
Shadow-plays among the sun-plunged cars mark her hunt.
Or are they shimmers of my languor
as I watch her out my window?
— Harvey Steinberg
Steinberg, an octogenarian, lives with his wife in Lawrenceville.
