Mowgli
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

There are eight cat toys on the floor.
Three balls with bells inside, three knitted
mice with catnip inside, one feathery thing
that looks like a sex toy, and one stuffed cucumber
that looks even more like a sex toy.

And still Mowgli wants the pen in my hand.

When I go to sit down in my poetry chair
he’s waiting, and when I begin to write
he pounces for the pen, trying to wrestle it from my hand
with his kitten claws and kitten teeth,
and, of course I wave it like a conductor’s wand

and he follows it with his face and he stands
up to grab it down. But then, I need to get to work,
so, he settles on my journal and watches
words emerge from my pen as I nudge him
further and further off the page as I go.

This is every morning.

And sometimes I am reminded of–and I’m sure
the Muse remembers this too—when, long before
I rescued Mowgli from the streets–I’d try to wrestle
the pen–with my kitten claws and kitten’s teeth–
from the Muse’s patient hand.