The Cat-Bird Seat Poem by David Nelson Bradsher

Our table was the setting for
the aviary breakfast that
took place outside the kitchen door.
We watched it with the cat

who, in the long tradition of
a feline-driven expectation,
stared with a look akin to love
(and requisite frustration) .

An indoor cat, she prowled the house
lacking the feral satisfaction
for the sage capture of a mouse
or any agnate action.

“Poor cat, ” she claimed, “just wants to play.”
I disagreed. “She wants to eat.”
We sparred in fun, but either way
the cat evinced defeat

for tortured viewings, through the glass,
of birds convening for the seed,
which offered them the chance—en masse—
to gather and to feed.

The house cat watches—still resigned
to suffer at the scene—
her eyes a solemn glaze behind
the spangled yellow-green.