Cat Snap

                       Cat Snap

The cat sinks slowly into sleep but not

Too deeply.  Holding onto surface wit

Enough to settle in its cardboard cot,

A box lid, furred, unfazed, it starts to knit

Together dreams and life until its tail

Stops swaying slightly at its tip because

The cat has entered slumbers that will sail

It into reveries that make its paws

Go twitchtwitchtwitch so fast that you might think

The visions there behind its eyes are more

Like nightmares of a feline kind.  Blink,blink,

The eyelids try to wince.  An inner door,

Though, opens up a scurrying of mice

That he would love to catch in fang-deep vise.

Phillip Whidden