14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

That I might not become too proud
of having tamed the wilder beast
within the domestic, the Lord sent me
a thorn in the flesh -
a tooth in the tit, to be exact.

For his usual proddings gone ignored,
the servant of the Living God
has chosen this particular way
to jump-start a sticky Sunday
after a night of tossing,

and me too hot
for the cover of sheet or pajama.
Arising at last - I confess
some time after that first
yowl of protest - I find

the tiny drop of blood
dried on the nipple,
a spot of red that aches
out of all proportion to its size.
"Little shit," I mutter

and trundle out to the kitchen,
where the Lord's servant is seated
serenely enwrapped in his tail.
He stares, but spares me
his usual patter and blat

"Oh, sure, now
you decide to be polite!" I say.

His bold eyes say,
"Breakfast!"

-Peggy Whiteneck

A Comment on the Process:
I think the cat must be a kind of totem animal for me, as it often appears, muse-like, in my poems. The image of the cat as the servant of God appeals deeply to me and comes from one of my favorite poems, the famous ode to his cat Jeoffry by the 18th century poet Christopher Smart. The incident related in my own poem occurred on the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time of the liturgical year (hence the poem's title). As luck would have it, one of the Biblical readings for that Sunday (Year B) was from St. Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians, 14:7-10, which begins, "That I might not become too proud...the Lord sent me a thorn in the flesh..." I couldn't resist the coincidence.