The Cat Transformed into a Woman. (Revised).

She retained some of her feline nature.
The lack of fur perplexed her,
So she grew her hair down to her slender heels.
"A little house on her head", she called it,
A little house that was dangerous in high winds.

Cutting nales always proved an awkward problem,
She was used to claws that rarely grew too long
And were easy to manicure on posts and doors.
Human nales, it seems, were a very different matter,
They cracked and snapped, and sometimes curled sharp
                                                        beneath her toes.
Even mice ran rings around her when she stalked them;
A cat on hands and knees is so easy to escape.

At a glance she seemed entirely, naturally, human,
Especially when snug tight on her lovers lap,
A sandwich in one hand, a whiskey in the other,
A Gold Sobranie lit between her lips.
But some nights she would sit close up to the window
And cry sad secrets to the waning moon.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
14th. - 17th. June 2020.
My response to the watercolour illustration by Gustave Moreau.