Unlike you neutered mutts I stalk the night in scandal. I prowl, feed, fuck. I sleep in hovels– vanish in alleyways.

I don’t know Kibbles ‘N Bits or kitty litter. I shit where I please and eat dock rats.

I sit on rugged haunches: My right paw grew back crooked after that screeching screaming battle you could hear down Chartres St. My mane is a sutured mortar-wound hardened by weekend foulness.

I cannot clean myself by licking.

I don’t know my progeny but swear I hear their calls, long into naked night in this city of gutters alleys, filth–I feel their fighting, their anxious brawls and tenacious jaws, the children of raped wild cats breathe that dangerous word: feral.

So purr now, pretty, eat well and sleep long. I’ve never sat on any man’s lap.