This afternoon I found a box
behind the kitchen door.
It wriggled there, a restless cube;
it writhed upon my floor.
I lifted up the cardboard lid
and took a peek inside,
and when I saw what lay therein
I swear, I nearly died.
THE CUTEST THING I’D EVER SEEN!
A darling ball of fur!
Adorable! And right away
I fell in love with her.
I scooped her up into my arms,
the mewing chunk of bliss,
when from inside the cardboard box
I heard a little hiss.
I reached inside and gathered up
another baby cat,
and then another, and one more,
and way more after that.
And soon the room was full of cats–
I thought I was in heaven!
By now my feline tally was
one hundred and eleven.
But things got weird soon after that.
Their purrs turned into sneers.
Their whiskers sharpened into blades,
their claws to pointy spears.
In unison they pounced on me
and I began to fall,
surrounded by a horde of cats–
A CATAMARI BALL.
The only thing that I could do?
Relinquish all control.
I let the catamari cats
initiate a roll.
We trundled through the neighbourhood
accumulating stuff.
(That’s what I pictured, anyway–
to steal a glimpse was tough.
But I did hear the kittens shriek,
their caterwauls of glee,
as garbage fastened to our glob
that rolled relentlessly.)
We gained momentum as we went.
I felt my insides turn…
till at the bottom of my gut
I felt an acrid burn.
I tried to hold it in, but no.
The vomit now was here!
I used my hands to stop its flow–
and puked inside the sphere.
It trickled through the clustered cats
who all began to moan–
my magic puke dissolved the beasts,
and I was left alone.