Alley Cat Love Song

"Alley Cat Love Song" is the third and final song of Paul Salerni's Bad Pets. "Alley Cat Love Song" was published in Gioia's volume Interrogations at Noon in 2001.

Date: 2007Composer: Paul SalerniText: Dana GioiaSong Collection: Bad Pets

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Alley Cat Love Song
by Dana Gioia

Come into the garden, Fred,
For the neighborhood tabby is gone.
Come into the garden, Fred.
I have nothing but my flea collar on,
And the scent of catnip has gone to my head.
I’ll wait by the screen door till dawn.

The fireflies court in the sweetgum tree.
The nightjar calls from the pine,
And she seems to say in her rhapsody,
“Oh, mustard-brown Fred, be mine!”
The full moon lights my whiskers afire,
And the fur goes erect on my spine.

I hear the frogs in the muddy lake
Croaking from shore to shore.
They’ve one swift season to soothe their ache.
In autumn they sing no more.
So ignore me now, and you’ll hear my meow
As I scratch all night at the door.

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