The Cat People

twenty one.

Outside the cafe --

Beside the yellow window light

And neon black night, he spoke 

From leathered skin, denim tainted.

He might have spoke me beware

The ides when he warned me

Of my feline eyes,

My upturned cat people blue eyed stare

And the cat people I draw near to.

He might have spoke beware and smiled

Black toothed, spoke beware.

And did I laugh out there, in the crisp october air?

When he spoke me calmly of the crooked little finger

On my right hand

And how it meant the man people 

Failed me once.

Then - how I fear domination.

And the night ran like cold water down my bones

And the smoke hung a heavy screen between

The world and this old fool and me

While he 

Went on speaking to himself

About the manifestation of animals

In us

About how we never listen to the animals

In us

Like beasts do

(And when at times we do, we become them too)

Even the cat people are only half clawed

And half saber toothed

And they don't listen to themselves when they

Hear somewhere deep inside their twisted

Tunnel ears

That they fear, and they draw near

To love and other such monsters

Under the bed.

Have they said yet whether it was worth it after all

(I've not tried it yet)

To have looked upon the face of a pained and pretty

People child behind a people grown up guise

And stand - to bet some four and a half lives

On a pair of kindred feline eyes

And later read it on their hands?