I cleaned your cat’s puke again today,
the beige chunks fused into our mat
while she gobbled down the rest. 
Remember when that made me 

retch? To eat one’s molten sick.
The way her body pumped it out
like the devil’s song, all heave and ho 
from gut to throat to floor. One time,

my shoe. A fur machine
for summoning Beelzebub. Better out 
than in? “Better in than out.” 
For you, it was natural. For your cat,

delicious. For me, to intervene
was an act of sacrificial love;
the hero with a wet wipe, a lion 
knelt between your shameless pet

and feckless disregard. So why
this growling nausea with the thought
that you are the cat, and I am the meal
you can’t keep down and cannot do without?