soft and hard and soft again

cynicism is an unpunished pride
i see it when you’re
soft and hard and soft again
it gives a dog the right to lay,
it permits himself to die.

but i’ve a cat with eighteen pairs of eyes
who’s lived forever if i’ve tried…
for i get the manifest, i get that
the body is but a brief bucolic relapse.

i won’t turn you away,
share my cage, though cramped it grows,
though we pace, though we age, though at times i’ll turn a hot eight
back and forth, that manic way.

for two make one and back again, it’s done,
nullified and survived in one pair of child eyes,
we will have won – thy will be done.

we rub our backs along the bars, mate and i,
we but appear to be inside.