I am sitting at my desk writing checks to pay bills,
as the kitten we foster plays with my feet,
tugs at my pant cuffs, needles her way up my leg
with hypodermic claws.
I brush her away from the game she has made of my extremities.
“My body is not a toy,” I say in an unmistakably stern voice.
She scrambles away and I return to my financial transactions.
Soon she is back, miniscule stabs into my occupied consciousness.
“My body is not a toy,” I repeat.
“Oh yes it is,” she counters and corrects.
“There are rules. You are kept as you keep them.
You are a pawn in the civilized game,
and you, master of mine,
are being played by a mastermind.”