Shibani Kaushik
The Cat Doesn't Swing
I look up ‘how to do a messy bun’ on YouTube
and watch the one with the fourth highest
number of views. The insurance ad suggests
I consider the elegant mathematics of my life.
I skip it with impunity. Everybody needs worms.
What would a factory-assembled boffin know?
That immortality is a cylinder of Pringles. I think
of airports in foreign languages. I wonder if
they’ll ask the cat to leave if my mortgage outlives
my mortality. Who’d feed a vegetarian cat though?
I’ll leave for a more thoughtful benefactor. Religious values
notwithstanding. Being the bigger person, I hope
they like jazz more than I do. The cat doesn’t
like rude people. Especially if they’re rude
and wear socks at midday on Wednesdays.
The cat is growing on me like an eyebrow.
Shibani Kaushik is an Indian-born poet who lives in London. She likes to write about gender, the natural world and everyday satire. Her poetry was once published by a bookshop on its bookmarks; it now lives between the pages of many books.