The animals were
imperfect,
their tails were too long, their heads
too sad.
Little by little they began
to correct themselves
they made themselves a landscape,
They aquired polka dots, grace, flight.
The cat,
only the cat
appeared complete,
and proud:
was born completely finished,
walked alone and knew what he wanted.

Man wants to be a fish or a bird,
the snake wants to have wings,
the dog is a baffled lion,
the engineer wants to be a poet,
The fly studies to become a swallow,
the poet tries to imitate the fly,
but the cat
wants only to be a cat
and every cat is a cat
from his wiskers to his tail
for his premonition to the live rat
from the night to his golden eyes.

There is no wholeness
like his,
neither the moon
nor the flower
is put together as he is:
he is one single thing
like the sun or the topaz,
and the flexible edge of his outline
is firm and subtle like
the line of a ship's prow.
his yellow eyes
leave a single
slot
to spill out the coins of the night.

O little
emperor without an orb,
conquistador without a country,
tiny living room tiger, nuptial
sultan of the sky
of erotic rooftops,
you reclaim
in the wind of love
in the open air
when you walk by
and put
four delicate feet
on the ground,
sniffing,
mistrustful of
everything on earth,
because everything
is unclean
for the cat's immaculate foot.

O fierce independent
of the house, proud
remenant of the night,
lazy, gymnastic
and detatched,
O master of profundity,
secret police of the neighborhoods,
emblem
of a
disapeared velvet
surely there is no
enigma
in your behavior,
perhaps you aren't a mystery,
everyone knows you, you belong
to the least mysterious neighbor,
perhaps everyone believes it,
believes he is the master,
the proprietor, the uncle,
the companion,
the colleague,
the disciple or friend
of his cat.

Not me.
I don't buy it.
I don't know who the cat is.
Everything else I know, life
and it's archipelago,
the sea and the incalculable city,
botany,
the pistil with its deviations,
the plus and minus of mathematics,
the volcanic funnels of the world,
the unreal husk of the crocodile,
the hidden kindness of the fireman,
the blue atavism of the priest,
but I can't decifer the cat.
My mind slides in his indifference,
in the golden numbers of his eyes.