Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SIGN BY THE ROAD: KITTENS FOR SALE, by BETTIE SALE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SIGN BY THE ROAD: KITTENS FOR SALE, by                    
First Line: Can you imagine anyone selling his kittens?
Last Line: But never, not ever black, white, tabby or calico kittens!
Subject(s): Animals; Cats


Can you imagine anyone selling his kittens? --
Young kittens with eyes like plops of opaline dew? --
Kittens with twitchery ears and little pink candy-heart noses?
And bellies of snowy fluff and paws like feathered roses?

If I hadn't two cents to my name I wouldn't sell kittens;
Not if they rolled underfoot and clawed runs in my hosiery,
Or meowed incessantly for cream and expensive cat-ration,
Or were littered in batches of twelve twice every lunation.

For never were light-flash or shadows so nimble as kittens --
(Dart-legged, eld-worshipped, deemed sacred, and mummied in spice!) --
Nor so deft, nor so daft swifts, junebugs or squirrels -- so winning
Knaves, elfmen or pixies -- adepts at frank amiable sinning.

I can imagine one selling his shirt or his ancestors' kettles,
Or his pottage, or his cottage, or -- in China -- his daughters,
Or his collection of stamps, or his car, or his old driving mittens;
But never, not ever black, white, tabby or calico kittens!





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