Stray Cat

Hello there stray cat. What are you saying, you with your plaintive purr and blinking eyes? Do I sound believable when I talk back to you? I wonder if I'm saying anything at all.

Perhaps you are lonely, or hungry.

I would feed you, house you, pet your ruffled fur, scratch behind your ears, meow at you in baby talk.

But for an instinctive aversion to wild things--a precautionary maternal admonition: don't touch that cat.