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For I Will Consider My Cat Eileen Murphy
After Christopher Smart
For I am annoyed with her.

For she doesn’t kiss My Cat Alice in kindness.

For she bullies Alice and pushes her off high walls.

For she is only interested in her own coat.

For she sucks up to visitors and ignores me.

For she strikes the center of my back to wake me if she thinks there is a hope of tuna.

For Alice cringes when she approaches.

For she roars for her food and reprimands me.

For her hairs cause too much work with the hoover and the roll of sellotape.

For she will always desert me for patches of sunlight.

For she runs away from me in front of the neighbours.

For she clings to my lap when she is only looking for a heat-up.

For her colours – soft grey, fawn, shining white, honey, sand, gold, black and peach –laugh in the face of designers and manufacturers.

For the sought out Líadáin when Líadáin was very sad and pressed herself against Líadáin’s side in a such way that tenderness could not be mistaken.

For she has the outline of a tiara marked out on the top of her head.

For the length and strength of her whiskers are the proof of God’s bounty.

For we know that she doesn’t pretend.

For she is a striped stravaganza with a tiara on her head.

For she gives a damn.