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enjoy this Kyle Hemmings writing in the free Down in the Dirt Tax Day 2011 PDF file chapbook Cat People				You can also order this as a 2011 6" x 9" perfect-bound paperback ISBN# book! Click on the cover spread for the book Cat People

I’m a Catster

Kyle Hemmings

Just before sunrise
I crawl into my mother’s room,
and wait, spring-loaded haunch,
the tension of ten thousand whiny years,
witness the sweep of the top sheet
13 kittens nestled between her legs
or tottering at the edge of the duvet.
She said she had this dream of cats
jumping through hoops, crossing a certain
border, pissing in the footsteps
of dog catchers and rat bounty hunters.
Havana Brown, Japanese Bobtail,
La Perm or Karat, I could never be,
she says, your father’s best kept
Oriental Shorthair. One by one,
the kittens jump from the bed
and disappear in the orange-golden arm
of sunlight. My mother goes back to sleep.
I smile and look down.
The real me is what’s under my pajamas:
torso made of tinder-dream,
loins of cat-scratch Pixie-Bob.
It’s getting harder at school
to not shed my true fur.

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