poetry
Dorothy Alexander and Doran G. Williams
MYTHOLOGY OF CATS
A sign on the lobby door cautions all who enter:
Please shut the door so Bonnie & Clyde do not escape.
More cats live outside. They permeate the premises
at Alpine’s answer to Santa Fe style: the Maverick Inn.
A dozen or more brindles, blacks, calicos lounge about,
not necessarily Old Possum’s Practical Cats.
Some appear feral, but who knows unless you
make petting overtures. Like some people we know.
Some say the souls of the dead return as cats.
Some say Alice B. Toklas, now an old calico tabby,
sits in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris
waiting for Gertrude Stein to come back
The cats are oblivious to the stories.
They create their own myths,
but won’t tell what they are,
nor comment on that nine-lives rumor.
One, however, a brindle, rubs against my legs,
lends subtle vibrations of his purring mechanism,
makes unblinking eye contact. Putting aside my doubts,
I return his stare and glimpse a loving soul I once knew.
by Dorothy Alexander
18
Cenizo
Fourth Quarter 2018