Stein chops, Stein reading/a poem for one out of three cats

With Bottle.
With Bean.
With Ruby.
With a bottle she would rather have.
With her.
With her too small body.
With her too early.
With a bottle she would have
skin in its place.
She would have.
With a bottle she is a name and fits in my hand.
A name that fits in my hand.
She begins as a noun
with skin in its place.
She begins as a noun and becomes an adjective.
So bottle.
So lovingly.
Lovingly we.
Lovingly we caress the noun.
Caressing the noun when she sounds like Janet Leigh.
Bottle when we call her Little Wombat.

*

The questions are invisible

fish, but otherwise, no
we never expected three
I like the quiet
there's a lot to walk to
I like the train in my sleep
we want to stay
we want to stay mobile
I was just getting to that
No
No, I didn’t go to school for this

*

Written in the margin of a book at a time I thought I wasn’t writing

We live here for reasons like Paris.
There are others.
Reasons like us.