She walks where spines meet spruce tips
The decimal claims its pine
Her paws mark hymns in needle scripts
Of resin dust and twine
Paper paws on forest floor
Turning pages counting cones
The bookstore cat knows something more
Than shelves or telephone zones
Creosote posts hold copper hymns
Where linemen once would climb
She reads the sag in every line
Like verses keeping time
Paper paws on forest floor
Turning pages counting cones
The bookstore cat knows something more
Than shelves or telephone zones
A discarded paperback breathes
Its glue dissolves in rain
She bats the cover turns the leaves
And reads the woodgrain stain
Paper paws on forest floor
Turning pages counting cones
The bookstore cat knows something more
Than shelves or telephone zones
The quarter hour chimes from town
She marks it in her breviary
A feral psalter leather bound
Where ink meets sap and quarry
No catalog can hold this wild
No spine can stitch the sky to soil
But in her fur the worlds reconcile
A purring antiphon unbeguiled
The index where both worlds compile
At closing hour she makes her round
Past mystery and biography
Where transformers hum a low drone sound
She sings the final doxology
Paper paws on forest floor
Turning pages counting cones
The bookstore cat knows something more
Than shelves or telephone zones
She sings in keys the pines have known
Pizzicato fades to breath
The last cone counted blessed
Paper paws at final rest
