smelling the cat

Here’s a fun one by Margaret Holley, for those of you who like to press your face into your kitty’s tummy:

Your Woods

I can’t do it often.
My wild cat sleeps
splayed on the sofa,
underchin up like a fishbelly,
a floating wreckage
on the airy currents
of his birdstorming dreams.

Gently, I lower my face
into the downy fur
and its scent of clean oils,
woodsmoke and rosemary,
and this fragrant memory
so subtly awakening
and so tentatively kneading
its claws into my temples.


#

source: Anthology of Magazine Verse 1980