Fat Cat

My cat, no Lassie, looks at me

With eyes whose green tranquility

Could watch me drown as long as she

Had just been fed.  She ought to be

A grand Episcopalian cat

With blue jay feathers on her hat,

Who flips her furs across the pew

While blandly disregarding you;

A cat who gets her every wish,

Who knows what wine to have with fish,

Imposingly, serenely fat,

A white-gloved Southern Lady cat.

For cats who have a sense of worth,

There is no higher form of birth.

We rather may anticipate

To reach the nobler feline state,

Superior to common things—

To purr on popes and shed on kings.

Gail White

©1998; originally printed in Light.  Reprinted
by permission of the author.