Reading the Cat

by Maggie Veness

I know you’re watching me. As I try to read I feel your 
stare like a beam of white heat. I keep losing my 

place, fidgeting with my pencil, tucking my hair 

behind my ears. I saw you watching me yesterday,

too, and a few days before that. I saw you studying

me from the reference isle -- as if I were the key to

 deciphering some ancient papyrus scroll. Now,

 I catch you staring again, this time from behind the

 photo-copy machine
.

I wonder, is this Library your refuge too? Do you 

feed on words, like me? Or are you a stalker who 

happened upon the automatic glass doors and then

 stayed to prowl through the jungle of books? You do

move like a cat, your body sleek like a panther.

Perhaps you’re preying on me -- I am younger than 

you, my figure does lean toward voluptuous, and I’m

 told my strawberry-blonde hair looks pretty hanging 

loose around my shoulders this way. Do I whet your 

appetite? How long will you bide your time, then 

pounce?

Now, if I were to walk over to you armed with these questions I’d be obliged to ask them in a respectful library-whisper. And if you needed to bring your ear, your face close, and lean your feline body in, in order to hear my justifiably hushed voice, no one would look twice. While we were cheek-to-cheek like that you’d have to sniff me, and after breathing in my scent you’d definitely want to lick my rosy neck with your rough, pink tongue.