Paul Hostovsky

Kissing the Cat

In the catalog of my addictions
which is in the order I acquired them,
the mouth of my cat Pinky
is preceded only by my thumb—

His mouth was the only mouth
that didn’t speak the language
of our house and television,
so I knew he’d never tell

as one by one my self-propelled
fish-mouth kisses found his mouth
and exploded, and his eyes
dilated like the binocular view from space

of a world going up in smoke,
and his ears changed shape like a hat
changing heads on his head—
Still as a water jug, he sat

enduring as I sipped his spout
on the lime couch
in front of our television, which
in the catalog of my addictions

would be the third entry.
According to my sponsor Phil,
either we give them up in the order
they’re killing us—which is often the reverse

order of their acquisition—or else
we simply exchange them one for another
and they kill us cumulatively.
Pinky died when I was off at college

learning to shotgun beers and roll a joint
while steering a car with only one knee.
I never graduated. But I did finally get sober.
And when I finally got sober, I got a kitten—

He tottered around my apartment, tentative
and awkward as my new sobriety.
So I named him Thumbs. And now we’re two
old toms living together, complacent

and fixed. We’ve given up everything
including sex. He mostly likes to sit
on the kitchen table, next to my cup and my plate,
while I’m eating. And mostly I just like

to let him.