To have climbed the crabapple apple tree
And gone onto the roof that windowed on my bedroom
Like another dimensioned portal that I might crawl into
In that long hard black hole kind of way
I was clawing to master
Was one thing
But to have been safe in my bedroom
At dusk with a pack of ten cats
Or so it seemed that day
Cats who had climbed my tree
Was another
The cats were howling in August heat
Seeking insistent
Something unfathomed
Or simply infatuated by our own queens
Our House Cats in heat
All to join in a Ferragosto harvest
Harvest of mid-August heat
An orgy on my bedroom floor if I unlocked the screens
But this whole pack? But why?
Cats I thought don‘t run in packs
Seeking insistent
Something unfathomed
Were they calling me?
I cowered yet cried aloud
To join them for one moment
Before being mayhemmed
Because I had never
Slithered out my window —
Only into it —
Onto the roof
Like the feral feline I became
They are still howling
After me like wolves
Crying alone in alleys
Of my dimming brain
But lions always heed the pride
Never running the hunt alone
Needing the pride
Wanting the pride
I decided to be a lioness
Masked face of golden fur.