Lamentation for a Homeless Alley-cat.

She channels Odetta past eleven

at night when every pinhole

in the sky is patched with black,

& every word is a punchline.

Each time she laughs she tears

a cavern between her nose & chin

& with her palm pulls across blank tape.

She says we cannot have a cat,

or push the bookshelves back

just a little further into the wall;

she is not worth a poem, but if

she were, this would be the only one.