… For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.

• Christopher Smart  Jubilate Agno

Couchant

Panther lies back, patting her paunch

with satisfied postprandial paw and purrs replete in sleep

One eye half open on the lookout for danger

The other fluttering slightly in a hunting dream

Passant

Sometimes she just feigns nonchalance.

As if she hadn’t noticed you. She has.

All of a sudden she turns to look you straight in the eye

and in a flash so quick you almost missed it

sticks her tongue right out at you and waggles it

about. Just to remind you who’s boss. She’ll

have you one day. Just not yet. One day.

Sejant and Salient

Sitting and waiting, sweet as pie. Eyes

quietly tracking prey. Across the carpeted floor,

up over the wallpaper, onto the stucco ceiling.

Wound ready to spring. And then

leaping. The twitching rhythm

of her muscles ever unsettled.

Being being becoming.

Disjointed

And here she is in pieces. Carved up like Sunday joint.

Or head of a traitor on a pike upon the castle wall.

Limbs in imagination all over the place

and where they shouldn’t be.

They like her like this. Her feet. Her lips. Her nails.

My glossy pelt and graceful arching back and wagging tail.

She adds.

Her fangs. The smell of blood about her breath. The beady

evil in her eyes. All laid out on the shield you use

to tell the story of yourself, protect your heart,

and turn the world to stone,

and scare your enemies away.