An Old Cat

He ate no more,
“Please me no tuna
dish at your open door,”
around the room a moat
filled with stone worms.

For bait he’d chummed
kittens cutely perched
in nooks of paper cut hearts.
A trawler he rowed to catch
the bones of relict relish.

He went on like this and on,
a sophist uttering disgruntled
guttural grunts mistaken
for charms by gullible
attendants on holiday for good.

His gig whirled on the briny beach,
bodies of ditched sea snails filling
with new fats and oils and muscle.
He stow away in a cave,
plenty likes to last a new day.