Cat Person

It’s not so much that I’m not a cat person
More like cats are not Nerissa people. 

All I wanted when I was five
Was a pink-nosed kitten,
Round blue eyes, milky breath,
Needly teeth and a rough tongue.

Oh! The sweet sound she’d make
Lapping up her saucer of milk.
Oh! The soft spot between her eyes
Which I could stroke whenever loneliness struck.

My desire so ensnaring,
It blinded me to realities.

My father is not a cat person.
My mother is allergic.
And yet.

One day, a wild kitten appeared
In my boyfriend’s garage, 
A feral fluffball.

My boyfriend’s mother, also allergic, put it in her pocket.
My boyfriend, also allergic, brought it to college
Named it after me.

My roommate welcomed the cat
We hid it from the authorities
Swore to clean its litterbox.

That summer, against the protests of my parents,
I sequestered it in my bedroom. It escaped 

Out the window, leapt to a tree, 
Fell and broke its leg.

What kind of a cat doesn’t land on its feet?

The vet set the leg in a long white cast
The cat slinked grouchily around the property
Dragging its injury defiantly.

A peculiar flavor of guilt, I felt. 
This animal, so clearly my prisoner,
I, its nemesis. No longer a blue-eyed pink-nosed
Lapper of milk, it sought revenge

By ripping, one by one, with its underemployed claws
All my rock star posters from the walls
As if trying to climb John Lennon’s 
Blue-jeaned torso. As if desperate to remind me
What getting my heart’s desire might cost.