beach cats they must come for the sun    as people do – not for a breeze flattening the fur    against their bodies as they turn round in long trampled grass       leeward of the one granite slab       with a warm exposure not for congregations of bird life    perched, or swooping self-involved upon the innocent (and which of us       visiting this beach       will remain innocent?) the sun has become a god to them    slit-eyed philosophers gazing over a tie-dyed commotion    of dark water          blurring the headlands          away beyond reason toward the smudged rumor    of another life –                   the red catboat          setting out to sea © 2007 by Beth Stevens