Nine lives

Oh I like this. Nothing like a bit of dangerous living. Great poem.

Thanks Sooz- perhaps more emboldening than dangerous...?

Wonderful the way the movement of the cat is achieved in the wording. For some reason I wanted it to end with
"out". I'm not sure why.

Thanks Ssor- that's an interesting observation. I think your instinct for 'out' is right. This is a poem of release. But I think of ‘rush in’ rather than ‘out’ because this is an internal release- a flooding of light into dark spaces. But I may be justifying crooked thinking and faulty poetics.

I was however wary of 'rush in' because of its allusion to ‘For fools rush in where angels fear to tread’ from Alexander Pope’s poem, An Essay on Criticism.

Fittingly, this is about the nature of writing and criticism- by self and others-the need to be be aware of (beware) how ‘ten low words [can] creep in one dull line’…!