After 10 kittens in the last 12 months,
now you, number 11
another whiskered wanderer,
a black white furry guest,
little monk with no need to possess,
little monk with no need to confess.
Playful innocence with a skinny tail.
We teach you house manners:
the litter box, the food bowl, the catnip mouse,
the scratching post, feathers dangled on a string,
and the domesticated feline code-of-conduct:
not shredding armchairs, couches, curtains,
not biting fingers on the hands that feed you.
There is an earthiness we are teaching you to forget,
an earthiness you might teach us to remember.
Have we learned earthly joy from you?
The words we teach you are ‘bad’ and ‘no.’
The word you teach us with your exuberant
body is Molly Bloom’s shouted life affirming ‘YES.’
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Many animal shelters have programs for people to take abandoned kittens into their homes
for a month or so and care for them until they are used to being with humans and ready to
be returned to the shelter for adoption.
In James Joyce’s novel Ulysses, Molly is the wife of Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of the daylong mythic
story loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey with Bloom as the hero Odysseus (L. Ulysses) and Molly as
Penelope, Odysseus’ wife. The last chapter composed of 8 sentences filling 35 pages and ending with a
flourish of ‘yeses’ moving toward the last life affirming: “YES!”