I Herd Cats

I herd cats.  Hunters and killers, scavengers and scoundrels.
Starving en masse.  I know what they want.
They are hungry and bitchy and cutting and laborious,
and all too often ungreatful once sated.
They look through me
and want to scratch me, eat me and piss on my trees.
They meow and hiss most inharmoniously.
They cry and want to suckle my teets.
I give them nipple shaped biskets.
I milk their tits and make them like it.
Step into my pasture said the spider to the cats.
Hunt or graze.  Scavenge or steal.  Feast and enjoy.
Come back for more.
Hot fish, hot bird and hot cow.  Cold drink, wet plants and hard cash.
It is my baliwick, my hunting ground, into which I lure cats.
It is each cat I cultivate, and stroke and feed and milk.
I try to plow each particular face, want and need into my memory.
I try to remember how utterly fat each milk jug is
and how sharp each claw, tooth and wit.
As if I were the only one who could exceed each distorted expectation.
I wear slip reststant shoes on my feet to aid my agility.
I am a hunter stalking a crop, a plow share smithed into talons.
I am at home and comfortable with myself.
But I live more when cats pounch, rend and tare at my silken barn.
I've heard cats. I've listened and responded, nurtured and culled. 
Cats are fuzzy and rewarding when greatful
but vicious and calculating when crossed,
deadly while on the hunt and tend to produce very little save littlers of kind.
And cold, wet, hard cash.