Poems (Forrest)/The cat in the cupboard
THE CAT IN THE CUPBOARD
There are plump lizards in the dusty grass,
And brown cockroaches that you might have had,
Green frogs that croak, and baby rats that hide
In bricked-in drains. Your fancy is instead
The caverns of a cupboard. Let one leave
A cupboard door ajar, and in you spring!
Bureau or press or anything that shuts!
'Wardrobes where empty gowns hang rustling,
The soulless envelope of scented things.
Ever so softly let the handle turn,
And there you are with your white stockinged feet
As delicate as Agag's! In you step
Prying in every corner till at last
You settle down with an inquiring purr
To meet what Fate shall send!
Indeed I think
Your forbears have been reared in English homes,
In old ghost-haunted manors. And you hear
In memory still the little mouse that squeaks
In oaken wainscots, or in some clamped chest
Where grandmamma kept that bright Paisley shawl,
Or the white Cashmere that the Nabob sent,
With ribbons that were worn at Waterloo
By a slim officer with noisy spurs,
And great jackboots! I think the lavenders
Of sunken gardens cling about them still,
For cats love fragrant things that women store.
Belike your forbear from the Old World came—
A soldier's bride in snowy pantalettes,
And bonnet too severe for her small face.
(Who shuddered from her bridegroom's sheathed sword,
And dreamed at night of horrid visages
Scowling, where convicts huddled in the waist
Of the accursed ship!) An English girl,
With mittened hand and obvious wedding-ring,
Smuggled her pet from some grey parsonage
To meet the blaze of the Antipodes!
Or else a "lifer's" sweetheart, following him
Over the blue of wide, adventurous seas
With tight plaid shawl held to her ample breast,
Brought your ancestor, clawing at the bag!
Maybe your great grandsires have met a king
Who had a queen at home, but knew a nest
Of dropping lilac-trees and hedges clipt
Inside stone walls that guard the secret well
Of that light lady from the provinces:
And your grandsire enjoyed a patch of sun,
And washed his ear and burnished up his tail,
And scorned the strutting peacock in his path;
Familiar with the merry ways of kings,
Watched the sword-stick, yet purred complacently,
Royal himself in poise, though presently
To drown his virtue in the pantry cream!
A tiger you become sometimes at dawn
In the wet grasses ambushing a bird.
On moonlit nights an emerald-eyed romance
You flit, a shadow into silences,
Leaving behind a gently swaying rose
You flicked in passing, till its censer spills
Musk on the tropic air, and still, I know
Your vice is cupboards—the door ajar!
And brown cockroaches that you might have had,
Green frogs that croak, and baby rats that hide
In bricked-in drains. Your fancy is instead
The caverns of a cupboard. Let one leave
A cupboard door ajar, and in you spring!
Bureau or press or anything that shuts!
'Wardrobes where empty gowns hang rustling,
The soulless envelope of scented things.
Ever so softly let the handle turn,
And there you are with your white stockinged feet
As delicate as Agag's! In you step
Prying in every corner till at last
You settle down with an inquiring purr
To meet what Fate shall send!
Indeed I think
Your forbears have been reared in English homes,
In old ghost-haunted manors. And you hear
In memory still the little mouse that squeaks
In oaken wainscots, or in some clamped chest
Where grandmamma kept that bright Paisley shawl,
Or the white Cashmere that the Nabob sent,
With ribbons that were worn at Waterloo
By a slim officer with noisy spurs,
And great jackboots! I think the lavenders
Of sunken gardens cling about them still,
For cats love fragrant things that women store.
Belike your forbear from the Old World came—
A soldier's bride in snowy pantalettes,
And bonnet too severe for her small face.
(Who shuddered from her bridegroom's sheathed sword,
And dreamed at night of horrid visages
Scowling, where convicts huddled in the waist
Of the accursed ship!) An English girl,
With mittened hand and obvious wedding-ring,
Smuggled her pet from some grey parsonage
To meet the blaze of the Antipodes!
Or else a "lifer's" sweetheart, following him
Over the blue of wide, adventurous seas
With tight plaid shawl held to her ample breast,
Brought your ancestor, clawing at the bag!
Maybe your great grandsires have met a king
Who had a queen at home, but knew a nest
Of dropping lilac-trees and hedges clipt
Inside stone walls that guard the secret well
Of that light lady from the provinces:
And your grandsire enjoyed a patch of sun,
And washed his ear and burnished up his tail,
And scorned the strutting peacock in his path;
Familiar with the merry ways of kings,
Watched the sword-stick, yet purred complacently,
Royal himself in poise, though presently
To drown his virtue in the pantry cream!
A tiger you become sometimes at dawn
In the wet grasses ambushing a bird.
On moonlit nights an emerald-eyed romance
You flit, a shadow into silences,
Leaving behind a gently swaying rose
You flicked in passing, till its censer spills
Musk on the tropic air, and still, I know
Your vice is cupboards—the door ajar!