Perhaps you think my cat too plump,
misapprehending his shapely paunch?
Repair your paucity of perspicacity:
contemplate the pouch's perfection.
How pleasingly it flaps as he sports,
how prettily it drapes across a lap!
Like a panther in a primeval swamp
he pads, paunch protruding, flopping.
No puny beanpole of a pouting model
approaches my cat's poised posture.
How peerless his proud proportions,
how pulchritudinous a prospect!
Mary Soon Lee was born and raised in London, but has lived in Pittsburgh for thirty years. She is a Grand Master of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, and three-time winner of both the AnLab Readers' Award and the Rhysling Award. The first print edition of her epic-fantasy-told-in-poems, The Sign of the Dragon, was published in January 2025. She hides her online presence with a cryptically named website (marysoonlee.com) and an equally cryptic BlueSky account (@marysoonlee.bsky.social).
