Her white treble hooks hook hearts;
a cat must dice, ever since the vegan lion was disparadised
Lil’ Red-in-Tooth, dear kitty preening,
comes clawed and fond of cleaving
Fond of me
in a dish
With eyes moon-round, the Egyptian queen,
like Mephistopheles, springs out
O, but oh look, oh,
our dozing darling fiend,
how she purrs,
how she’s a purring donut
Does Precious dream?
Yes, of gutting,
of flensing and filleting;
of everything, bloodied, fleeing, screaming
Into every open wound
her heart-shaped nose dips, then drips;
Soft dreaming, kitty sneezes blood, and roars a purr
Only for eating, then excreting,
does she deign adjourn the sweet hell in her
Jonathan van Belle is a copy editor for Outlier.org, an online education platform. He previously worked as a bookseller at Powell’s City of Books. Jonathan is the author of several books, all available online, and is currently working on his first book for Deep Overstock Publishing.