Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

My cat is a politician — either asleep
or causing trouble; there is no third way.
His fat is in odd places, unhappily sat
and his eyebrows meet in the middle.
In his hour of triumph he is often facing
the wrong way, grinning at a blank wall
with the solemn ‘o’ of his arse staring at you.

Instead of vanquishing foe, he plays coy tiddlywinks
with lizards until their tails fail off, watching a green comma
chuckle on the tile while snakes oil under the mosquito screen —
his simple paw of truth bats the good, leaving fat
cockroaches and industrious centipedes sanctioned.
To be sure, he fills with hot fur very nicely, but prefers
to spend his hours at a window, where he practises looking sacred.
(This blessed face most blameless when I find him
up a neighbour’s tree squeaking for home.)

He is unduly interested in my affairs. If I’m reading,
he sees himself as the perfect window, or page turner,
or invigilator, his head peering over the lip of a book,
perhaps coughing up a rebate onto the page — my 10% of gecko.
I once pressed his paw in honey for him to lick at leisure
(his face was devastated with happiness) but now he dips
into anything, his foot ever raised for the dunk.

There is tuna stashed in some other cat’s garden.
I once saw him pass a sardine to a Scottish Fold under cover
of darkness. He loves having his back scratched
but expresses no interest in scratching yours.
Sometimes he forgets to put his tongue back in
and his girlfriends are suspect.

And he’s stupid. He’s made an art out of running into walls
and hiding himself in woollen knots, He cleans his tail at the edge
of a six foot drop. There are times he gets a foot stuck in an ear.
He sees me applying Tiger Balm to mosquito bites and sticks
his tongue in, becoming a boss-eyed spit machine.
He leaps on top of the dustbin filled with water
when the lid is mysteriously missing.
He needs to know just what is in that dog kennel.

And when disaster is dodged or survived, there he is —
sat on his rectitude and looking sacred.