The Cat With the Wandering Eye

Ellie, the cat with the wandering eye,

And the lingering thought, blinked,

Ventured out, and, in a flying leap, left us

And her companion, Homer,

Who stays at home and writes

Imaginary epic poems,

To visit the shadows somewhere,

To show us—all of us—her tail,

To show us she could pass through,

The door, one down from the door to Shangri-La,

To become the cat who never was,

Until she wasn't where you thought she was.

Rather, Ellie leaped into

The wanderlust to become,

The cat who left on holiday,

Ventured out to travel

From downtown to uptown,

Perhaps to catch a mouse,

But caught, instead,

The McKinney Avenue Trolley,

The car named "Daisy,"

That had come to us all the way,

From Buenos Aires,

Which, as luck would have it,

Was filled with tango-dancing cats

Packed in like oily sardines,

On their way, hither and non,

To visit aunts and cousins

Who lived in boxes and other rentals,

Elsewhere in the city.

Ellie deplaned just in time,

When the bicycle bell

Ching-a-linged like an iPhone

at Klyde Warren Park,

And there paid her visit,

To Miss Vera and Mr. B.,

Two cousins of perfection,

Loved ones who also shed,

Little objects of their affection.

Now, If only she would return to relate,

The true nature of worlds beyond doors,

Neighborhoods beyond Milky Ways,

Where one wears nothing at all,

And the wanderlust wishes for fall.