A poem for our fidgety cat, approaching his first birthday

Blitzen in the night, scratching

the duvet, then my arm and on

to the top of my head, a feline

 
 

comb and drag with his insistent

claws. I'm pulled alright, into dawn,

or the pre-dawn gloom, where lie

 
 

only inert bodies in a cool room,

one sleeping cat, and then this other

high-strung being terribly set

 
 

on waking the great warm

presence he knows, any way how

approval or pats or shoves right off

 
 

onto cluttered floors won't matter:

he has to summon me, he's not sure why.

I stumble through to a cold floored

 
 

kitchen, offer him a pouch of food.

Blitzen, crooning, flumps to ground,

rolls around, looks at me

 
 

with indecipherable green-gold eyes.

I look at him. He watches me. We wait.