Martin Bennett: ‘After Christopher Smart, a Tribute’

After Christopher Smart, a Tribute

For I shall consider our cat Tobina.
For against the tv’s jabber she deploys an exemplary silence.
For in the night-watches her pupils dilate headlamps of reflective jet.
For come sunrise she makes the bed’s corner her prayer-mat.
For she creeps, she darts, she slinks and struts and preens.
For she arches, she rolls, she stretches, various unknown verbs between.
For in her leaping she leaves books, ornaments and nick-nacks intact.
For she alternates briskness with languor.
For her wriggles can seem oracular.
For she enjoys the sunlight as if it were a boon companion,
For sleep is a customised cavern where she retires or emerges at will.
For like a surveyor she marks out the apartment according to temperature and utility—window-
sill, pelmet, coign.
For she licks her paws to a proverbial cleanness, then, a penny for thoughts, pats her head.
For her whiskers twitch at mysteries which we can neither hear nor see.
For her right cheek sports a…