CCXII

No matter how often I feed the cat,

the frightened picture stays the same each time:

to him, I’m tall, and terrible, and fat,

a monster of a kitten’s fairy rhyme.

But after all is done, and I sit down

to read a book (or to my phone defer),

he always comes to visit me, to drown

the monstrous work in one great monstrous purr.

As if Jack and the Giant could be friends!

What fairy tale would that presume to be.

What if the hero made his just amends

with every monster that he had to see?

And that would be a story for our time:

to love a foe, and call it not a crime.