"The Cat" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

"Daydreamer" by Kim Roberti

    The cat

                              licks its paw and

        lies down in

                            the bookshelf nook

                                                                 She

                                    can lie in a

                                              sphinx position

        without moving for so

                                         many hours

and then turn her head

                                to me and

                                          rise and stretch

       and turn

                       her back to me and

              lick her paw again as if

                                    no real time had passed

                     It hasn't

                                    and she is the sphinx with

                        all the time in the world

                                             in the desert of her time

             The cat

                    knows where flies die

                               sees ghosts in motes of air

                                                   and shadows in sunbeams

She hears

                  the music of the spheres and

       the hum in the wires of houses

                           and the hum of the universe

             in interstellar spaces

                                                      but

                prefers domestic places

                             and the hum of the heater

"The Cat" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti from These Are My Rivers. © New Directions, 1993.