Steven Reese: Tongue Got Your Cat

                           Cat Walkers, by Mary Hatch, 1993, oil on canvas, 36” x 40”

 

 

Tongue Got Your Cat

Disappeared it behind a cute
name, snatched its leap out of midair
like a frog a fly, shushed its yowl
back to mew then scolded it mute.
Tongue got your here goes! with how dare?,
switched-out your dive-in for a towel
of soft lies to soak up the bleed.
Tongue got your high mind: talked it down.
Tongue got your secret, spilled its beans
and clucked at it. Tongue got your deed,
made it stand still, called it a noun
and said that’s all your doing means.
On it went. And the tongue grew fat
lapping up milk meant for the cat.

_______________
Steven Reese

Review by Spencer Smith
The beauty of poetry is that it’s possible to enjoy a good poem without being sure exactly what it means, and being okay with the possibility of multiple meanings. I enjoyed the almost hip-hop rhythms of the language, the looking at things backwards, the use of the multi-definitional word “tongue” in fun ways, and didn’t even realize it was a sonnet until the last two lines.

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