Untenable Poem by Martha Zweig

Wet cat, long-haired tail aloft & parted in fronds,
squeezes in doorwise out of the rain, & just so I was born,
slick, quick & slipped (once) through the twice-
in-a-lifetime only

chink-in-things some nicety struck between not-
being & being, to this: ah! -
the ungodly side, where the food is.
Warm bodies here rub the warm body I've got. I'm amazed.

Formerly a null hypothesis (at best, glorified
wild guess), now I occupy premises, keep cats.
Are we not amused? Slightly, almost, unless who's too
brainy today to keep whom company? As if-

might we? - take whim for cue & reciprocate,
gingerly negotiate this instant world unlikelier
than any other, busily commingling our accidents?
Preposterous coincidence! Gimmick? Intrigue, plot?

Or, yawn, never mind? A lie! Here's mind persistent, mine,
& (once chowed down) all sentience I know transfixed
ahead & scared to death: what next
opens-&-shuts is nix: no-way, the far cry, the forget-it.