Atavism I

Squatting in the kitchen
I share left-over lamb with the cat.
It is as if he were a bad fellow
returned from some wrong doing.
I think for a moment he will confess
and I will absolve him
with these bits from the body
of another animal.

Our communion is slight and stringy,
it coats our tongues with fat.
He mews; I mutter, it's over,
this blurring of boundaries
between fur and skin.
But I feel in the house somewhere
a lean cat man with a grudge,
slipping off his boots,
bent on retribution.