Cat’s Game, or Playing Noughts & Crosses in the Dusk

You tell me tic-

tac-toe is

boring, will always

end in ties, a stale-

mate just like us,

where nothing has been

lost but never won,

our draws ad infinitum,

our pencils ever

dull in HB grey,

from the scratch

of X & Os, in a box in

a box of nine, lives of a

sterile cat, jejune

along its treadmill

night & day,

stop & start

eternally out of

reach—of its clawless,

pacing paws, going nowhere

slow yet swift—

a circle

for which there is no

bitter close,

commencement,

a first or final kiss,

and where an X

is always X—

regardless of

inversion,

its red of wrong

& quarry,

will always mark the

spot that lied of love.

Andreas Gripp

July 1, 2025

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