Yellow Tom

He is clear gold, the delft-blue

adolescent says, real good gold

and lookit his eyes, he knows it's

going to rain even in all the sun.

He's a brown cat, the woman in

cardigan argues, purple cardigan;

and tears up race track tickets.

Only the genuine calico brings

you luck, but this one's like

a mortician I know, with nothing

too good for death except himself.

A yellow tom, the telephone linesman

grins, and he has a face like

my wife dishing out liver when I

want steak. Looks at you like

you oughtn't to sit here in view

plainly in your undershorts.

An Orange cat, compares the orange

haired matron, reminds me of a cake

with real curagao in it, just

a spoonful, but illegal for winning

in the baking contest, so I lost.

She'd like crossing me too.

Apricot colored, isn't he? asks

the painter, uncertain with dress,

hose and face powder shades.

Looks like life inside-out,

or meant to run into spirals or

wonderful sleep-alert. Had one like

him when I painted my crucifixion.

Tawny cat, says the old farmer,

death on mice, but looks neat and sweet

at sparrows, waves his tail like a baton

for music a long way off but sure

to come and stay. Just as soon have

him for companion in the good here-

after, plus my silo and orchard.

The cat rose, golden, yellow,

orange, tawny, brown, all, with

a computed-composed-complicated

dignity, its reverse opal eyes

assimilating none of them, its

pink-shell ears antennaed outward

and to things further aloft, and

he walked with a covert privacy away

leaving a tenuously long space of

remembering and gauging only him.

There he goes, with everything,

says the boy, everything you ever

tried to think about alone.

The farmer pats his knees

as for an absence and return;

the painter strokes his chin

for a sadness or sharpness;

the sweatered woman evokes

a horse like a cat equally

uncertain and unpredictable;

the red-haired matron says

indulgently to everyone there:

present company excepted, what

is there left to be talked about?

The linesman lights a cigarette,

and I push forward in

my chair and think nothing,

nod or supplement not

a thing, because the cat

has left wordlessness and

something gentler than dismissal,

in duality and counterpoint.