A! Magazine for the Arts

The Cats of Rome

March 27, 2019

The cats of Rome sleep, feed, and breed

among the tumbled travertine, and slip,

tails high, across the flag draped avenues.

Ignoring pomp, alert to circumstance,

they cruise cafes for crumbs or prowl

the Pantheon.

Because the ages blaze

and fade, the cats ignore the ranks

of flags and fleets of long black cars.

At the axis of the empire, they curl

round Trajan’s column, indifferent

to a fault, at home in a falling world.




For Felicia Mitchell
Nazim Hikmet Festival Chapbook, 2015
Reprinted with permission (“A Letter to Greta”)

READ ANOTHER POEM BY EDISON JENNINGS: TIPPLE TOWN

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