The Cat Who Edits

The Cat Who Edits

By Claudia Wysocky

The cat who edits what isn't loved is motivated

by its own greed for the spotlight.

It's been asleep, dreaming of the red pen

it'd paw at when it heard a new poem in the hall.

Without even asking, it pounces and takes over,

removing any trace of what was there before.

When you see the cat, it is time to run and hide.

It will keep you up all night and work you like a slave;

it doesn't need a screen or a fat stack of paper.

It has only one idea: to take your poem apart

and put it back together again as something else.

It won't stop until it thinks it's done enough damage—

till you're tired of fighting with every word it adds or deletes;

till there's nothing left that can be changed again, nothing left that is yours alone,

it is his.