Kabibi Love and Flowers and Other Things

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem 

Kabibi came to me the first day of

My teaching in that Great Rift Valley school.

At first I did not know how much my love

Of her would turn me to a kitten fool

Of silly, full affection.  In the night

She slept with me beneath the bedclothes, purr

And warmth and sweetness calming me to flight

Towards rest as deep as valley rift.  Her fur

Fluffed prettier than printed flowers on

Veranda chairs.  The thing she loved the most

Besides her man, though, was her liaison

With wriggling lizard, swallowing its ghost.

  She tortured me by going off on jaunts

    To seek out distant hunting campus haunts.

~ Phillip Whidden