A little cat lazes

along a bench
He occupies everything
The sun,

the pooling heat
The motorbike man

with a cigarette

clamped between his teeth
The up and up and up

one-way wayward streets
When he rolls,

his little cotton belly

spills

richly from beneath

a mountain-shadow coat
Ah, he says
And rubs his bony shoulders

into the seat
Above: black-vined power lines,

a lark,

oleander tossing her thick purple braid

over the sandstone
El Gatito, little king

of this

corner of light