The Satin Play Pretty

      The Satin Play Pretty

They play.  They play at slaughter.  That is why

Huỳnh Tấn Hậu Unsplash Community

Their faces look so solemn as they claw,

The Sphynx beneath a pharaonic sky.

They sneer in silence at the thought that awe

For life in creatures that they capture ought

To fill their brains with reverence.  Pupils aim

For death and torture.  Paw pads stretch out fraught

With claws that search for rapture, pierce to maim

And feel fulfilled with glut of fun in flesh.

The ribbon twiddled by their human serves

As practice for the moment that wings thresh

About in agony like anguished nerves.

Cats reach, and stretch, and play at beauty.  Fur

Conceals the cruelty. Bird life turns to slur.