kritter

Men wish they were fishes or birds;
the worm would be winged,
the dog is a dispossessed lion;
engineers would be poets;
flies ponder the swallow's prerogative
and poets impersonate flies--

but the cat

intends nothing but the cat:
he is cat
from his tail to his chin whiskers:
from his living presumption of mouse
and the darkness, to the gold of his irises.

His is that peerless integrity,
neither monnlight nor petal repeats his contexture:
he is all things in all,
like the sun or a topaz,
and the flexible line of his contour
is subtle and certain
as the cut of a bowspirt.
The gold of his pupils leaves a singular slash
and coins tumble out of the sight.