Soon after we adopted you
a homeless stray
lost or abandonned
young silver calico cat
you summoned the nerve
to emerge from under beds a while
hang out around us and the dog
staked out your domain
strategic point of power
purchase of the stairway
to heaven, we called it.

You may be sitting, docile (sometimes just apparently)
half-way up
or lying on your back, paws in the air, waiting
for me to pass by in my nightie
with the long hem flouncy skirt
you love to try to catch
making me hike it up, olden day style,
before you connect.

Or you may be stretched out in all your prettiness
white and silver and patches of black
with flecks of rusty orange
(the vet warned they mean temper in your dispositon)
but you've proven sweet most of the time)
and not bothering yourself to
slide over for the others
so we've had to become more agile
at stepping over,
and squeezing past.

If we look around afterward
we often find you still in your glory
waving the limbs that make you feel
so powerful.

But you're affectionate, gentle,
mostly, we know
you just like to play this game
don't mean to almost trip us up.

You, the first cat we ever had
maybe we're letting you get a bit...spoilt?
Or else it's the feline trait
to grace beautifully with threat.

Now Angel, the dog, little octagenarian
white maltese
who was here first, afterall
never knew what challenges you'd bring
especially for her route up to her bed
and back down in the morning.
She stops in her tracks in her ritual race
down to the doorway
for the doorbell, now
as experience tells her there could be
you, parked ready to ambush.


Or she waits at the bottom if you're up ahead
staring her down with your knowing eyes
luring her into temptation to try to approach
sometimes I hear her whine
and I feel ridiculous
to have to go up and escort her
past you.

Stay out of it child psychologists, trainers, vets would say, they'll work it out
and I can't always be there, it's true.

Penny Lane, you're up on all Angel's patterns
and you're a strategist who knows the victory will always be yours if
she dares to take you on,
her yaps and growls so much greater than her forte
the lion dog, brave, as her species boasts.
When she's just had her hair cut
you seem to grow giant up to her
and both of you feel the difference.

But on good days, when the mood's just right
and the humans have kept neutral
you two surprise me with your close moments
and warm sleeps side by side
so I guess there's hope.

Penny Lane, my son called you
while your chosen lane is that blue-carpeted rise
that twists at the landing, where you bask
when the sun comes in below the skylight.

My mom-in-law observed this claim
the first day she met you
'She owns it' she said, of the territory
and that lady knows cats
I thought she was imagining things
I should have listened sooner.

Heaven assist us if we're bringing up
laundry or coffees
and you choose not to budge
you know my order now to scat
and if you feel like it you will
but then,...you're a female cat

having your Cheshire smile
confident in your military pose
so we never count on it

08/19/2000