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the sleeping animal be part of the adjective. When I picture this sleeping feline, perhaps stretched out on a shelf or some other elevated object, the notion of absolute stillness and state of being a cat are commingled.

Furthermore, the pairs of parentheses with the aid of active imagination become the recumbent animal's head, the c-a-t its body and the next set of parentheses suggest its flank and tail. In the second line the progression of comma, semicolon, and colon are a punctuational progression of stillness. The comma pause is more brief than the semicolon, which ismore brief than the colon.

In the second stanza our concrete poem becomes dynamic. We all know that cats always land on their feet. This one perhaps rolls over in its slumber and falls from whatever elevated object it had lain on. The accidental fall turns immediately into a volitional leap. The succession of l's in FallleA become the cats extended legs ready to absorb the impact of landing and the capitalized A suggests an arched back.

I'm not sure what to say about ps!fl other than to say the exclamation point is surely the cat's upraised tail and the dot is anatomically verisimilitudinous. I'm not totally clear on

OatumblI Sh?dr IftwhirlF (Ul)(lY)

but the conjoined words seem to effect the same transference from unintentional to intentional that we saw in FallleA. The upright tail has relaxed into a question mark shape. I also sense a lateral or spinning movement of our feline in the word whirlfully, which I have stripped of its capitals and punctuational baggage. The word would be a delightful adverb if it existed. It makes good sense if it is divided in two to make "whirl fully" and to suggest that in mid air the cat has made the bodily adjustment necessary for it to land safely on the floor. The next line with those parentheses and leg-like else to me presents the animal now standing in place. I won't even try to explain why I get that image; i just do.

The three ampersands look like three seated cats. The poem was about a single cat, but perhaps once the animal has made his successful landing, tom or tabby might tremble momentarily. This pictorial method of suggesting movement or trembling is employed by today's cartoonists and by cave painters of thousands of years ago.

Then, the incident having caused no harm or injury, our pussycat

Away wanders:exact ly;as if not hing had, ever happ ene

D

The pausal punctuation is now in reverse order to suggest acceleration.

It's unfortunate that you are likely reading this on your monitor's screen. However if you scroll back to the first printing of the total poem, lift up your monitor and turn it clockwise 90 degrees, doesn't the poem have a slight resemblance to the shape of a standing cat: the concluding capital D being its head or nose, those long lines its legs, the title its tail?

No? Oh well. I need no punctuational emoticon to indicate that I've been having fun, which is what the poem is all about. You may now turn your monitor or Ibook back to the normal position and return it to its resting place.

Learn more about this author, Kerry Michael Wood.
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