Cat People

you lie in bed and listen
as the cat people
come home
pad down the street
slipping through doors
to find their high perches
in apartment buildings
those lightless rooms
with bowls of fruit
and webs of shadow
where they sit
by the open windows
and on the balconies
of sour moonlight
smoking their dead
mothers’ cigarettes
while fingering
their sea glass collections
strange eyes close
then open to see
everything in the dark
you can’t even imagine
is out there
hungry and poised
saying darling
oh darling