Artificial Animal

I never owned a serval.

I never kept a thing

so dangerous

it had to be housed

in a lair. Let me be clear.

On an apartment-style

sofa, all velvet-crush, all

evergreen, there perched

a baby serval. A solitary

carnivore, this cat

is active day and night.

I felt my own fear.

A serval likes to stalk.

It has large, black spots

that break into rows

as they move down

the back. This cat

I never owned

is fast. Fast and

slow. Slow then fast. Is

fierce. Fierce enough

to get a man up against

a wall. I told myself stop

worrying. I told myself

there is no fear. The gentle

guard hairs wisp over

the white of the animal

underside. Sometimes

more than others, when I

read, I feel the words

as very, very far. I find

a thimbleful of pleasure

in the thought

of something soft. The greatest

line ever written, I find,

by Rossetti at fifty: I am sick

I am not. Coincidentally,

I suppose. I never know.

I never liked the guess-what

-I-am situation. I don’t

know what comes next,

what happens after. I never

owned anything like

that animal. I swear.