I took my cat apart to see what made him purr. Like an electric clock or like the snore of a warming kettle, something fizzed and sizzled in him. Was he a soft car, the engine bubbling sound? Was there a wire beneath his fur, or humming throttle? I undid his throat. Within was no stir. I opened up his chest as though it were a door: no whisk or rattle there. I lifted off his skull: no hiss or murmur. I halved his little belly but found no gear, no cause for static. So I replaced his lid, laced up his little gut. His heart into his vest I slid and buttoned up his throat. His tail rose to a rod and beckoned to the air. Some voltage made him vibrate warmer than before. Whiskers and a tail: perhaps they caught some radar code emitted as a pip, a dot-and-dash of woolen sound. My cat a kind of tuning fork?-- amplifier?--telegraph?-- doing secret signal work? His eyes elliptic tubes: there's a message in his stare. I stroke him but cannot find the dial.
~~May Swenson~~
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