The Secret in the Cat
I took my cat apart
to see what made him purr.
Like an electric clock
or like the snore
of a warming kettle,
something fizzed and sizzled in him.
Was he a soft car,
the engine bubbling sound?
Was there a wire beneath his fur,
or humming throttle?
I undid his throat.
Within was no stir.
I opened his chest
as though it were a door:
no whisk or rattle there.
I lifted off his skull:
no hiss or murmur.
I halved his little belly
but found no gear,
no cause for static.
So I replaced his lid,
laced his little gut.
His heart into his vest I slid
and buttoned up his throat.
His tail rose to a rod
and beckoned to the air.
Some voltage made him vibrate
warmer than before.
Whiskers and a tail:
perhaps they caught
some radar code
emitted as a pip, a dot-and-dash
of woolen sound.
My cat a kind of tuning fork?—
amplifier?--telegraph?—
doing secret signal work?
His eyes elliptic tubes:
there's a message in his stare.
I stroke him
but cannot find the dial.
From 100 Plus American Poems
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