The Cat’s Eyes & Dog People Assume All People Are Dog People

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Patrick Paridee Samuel

__________

The Cat’s Eyes

I hold him down
knowing better,
patience building
obstruction as his
vision triggers
scent-seeing, dirt
digging stick.
To his corner
to clean himself
the shapes he makes
reaching, licking.
Each day coming
when my coffee’s done,
Cuisinart beeps
calling as if stray
where my husband
sleeps. Chirps his own
bark at birds. Purring
and tail a padded cell
on the carpet, oh kitty
how I wanted bricks
stacked another way
other than some other
family’s house. Able
yet still he smells
me, my wanting
it clean returns
as opal not for eyes
but fur, tufts in his sleep
my yells stir.

__________

Dog People Assume All People Are Dog People

I’m allergic, I lie,
nowhere near half
certain my bluff
might fly. I should
tread lightly.
If any coworkers
should hear they’ll
stop gossiping
around the printer
where their dog hair
from their sweaters
clings to the loading tray,
stamping my copies
until I tweeze them
one by one from
frame. I really don’t
want to touch it,
and apologies
for misgendering
your teacup poodle
but it just licked
my plate.
I don’t admit
things that beg
and it begs.
My house
for instance
on long weekends,
any social outing
outdoors, even retail,
it’s lower racks
suffer. Smelling
as bad as smokers,
all of you, and just
as bad thinking
not you, your
little babies
would never.
This is not to
alienate you,
this is prison
break volume
wire-tripped electric
red, veining the scene
an infancy I imagine
springs parents
from bed. Letting
the dumb thing hang
its head from the car
window. Growing up
the family lab Daisy
jumps from the bed
of our truck, a thud
round the off-ramp.
Collar then leash Pop
wisely jammed
in the rear wind
screen, dangling
there like a fish
from a hundred lines
we pulled flush
from the lake that year,
mere glass and a proper
knot holding her there.

__________

Patrick Paridee Samuel‘s darling Opal.

__________

Patrick Paridee Samuel is the author of And Another Thing (Broken Sleep Books, 2025) and the chapbook A Suite of Heads (Ghost City Review, 2024). He received an MFA from Columbia College Chicago. His poems have appeared most recently in Allium, Beaver Magazine, Frozen Sea, Waxing and Waning, and Whiskey Tit. Originally from Michigan, Patrick currently lives in Nashville where he works in university press publishing.

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