‘For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.’ Christopher Smart
Unlike kind Kit Smart, incarcerated,
by his father-in-law, in bedlam –
and estranged from his children forever –
I do not have a cat. I have the neighbour’s.
I think there is only one though it dresses
in ginger, tortoiseshell, Friesian, motley,
whatever. It is ‘the Devil, who is death’
for it stalks the wren, the blackbird, the robin,
that sing and nest. Poor Christopher – busy hack,
fine poet – died a debtor, without Jeffroy,
in prison. Could he hear the red kites
long, sad whistle above the sewer
and the rats chatter? Our robins sang arias
all day. Now they have gone – for somewhere to breed
safe and sure from a cat of disguises –
leaving a clutch of sky blue eggs unhatched.
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By David Selzer