Artificial Animal
By Sally Keith
I never owned a serval.
I never kept a thing
so dangerous
it had to be housed
in a lair. Let me be clear.
On an apartment-style
sofa, all velvet-crush, all
evergreen, there perched
a baby serval. A solitary
carnivore, this cat
is active day and night.
I felt my own fear.
A serval likes to stalk.
It has large, black spots
that break into rows
as they move down
the back. This cat
I never owned
is fast. Fast and
slow. Slow then fast. Is
fierce. Fierce enough
to get a man up against
a wall. I told myself stop
worrying. I told myself
there is no fear. The gentle
guard hairs wisp over
the white of the animal
underside. Sometimes
more than others, when I
read, I feel the words
as very, very far. I find
a thimbleful of pleasure
in the thought
of something soft. The greatest
line ever written, I find,
by Rossetti at fifty: I am sick
of where I am and where
I am not. Coincidentally,
I suppose. I never know.
I never liked the guess-what
-I-am situation. I don’t
know what comes next,
what happens after. I never
owned anything like
that animal. I swear.
