LJ Idol Week Two: what really matters
Poem for my Cat
I let you out on the porch with me,
to sit, and smoke, and pass the time.
Because you're a coward, or loving,
I don't know which,
and you never go more than ten feet from me.
You, above all, will never run.
On one winter night, I thought you were shivering,
but you were crawling towards me,
eyes squinting against my cigarette smoke.
You only wanted to be in my lap.
I never smoked around you again.
One day, when you were younger and braver,
I let you out for a sit, and then I wanted to walk,
but I left you on the porch.
You came up the street after me,
and because I walk so fast,
you were crying, jogging,
until you gave up and sat in some bushes.
When I came back an hour later,
you were still there, and you ran out to invite me home.
I never let you see me leave the yard again.
I would drive up to college every week,
and drive down again on weekends.
I pretended it was to work,
but really, it was to see you.
Whenever I left, I would tell you
"I'm leaving now. I'll be back on Friday."
One time my mother was discussing her plans,
and said, "I'll be back," and you made a cry
of surprise. You had been closely listening.
And on Fridays I would always tell you,
"I came back. See? I came back."
One hot Friday night, the doors were left open
and because I move silently, like you
I walked into the kitchen and was able to see you
waiting at the window
watching all the cars go by,
leaning over with anticipation every time.
I never sat there in my car to listen to music
and have a cigarette on a Friday again.
I always came to see you first,
in order to say,
I came back.
You are in my bed now. Not on it -
you feel chilly sometimes, and love to sleep beneath the covers,
which is why I don't make them in the morning
but let you find the dark shape I made when I slept there.
We are hundreds of miles from where we were born,
but I brought you, and you were good in your carrier.
You slept at my feet as the plane took off.
And sometimes, when I'm in the house with you
I think of how I made my promise: I came back.
I'm here now, quiet, at home.
You may dream the unknown dreams of a cat.
I planted trees for you.
Small now, but by the time you pass,
they'll have grown, into a flowering grove,
and if children ever live in that house,
they'll sense it as a sacred space.
I made a gravestone for you, too.
It reads:
There are many little black cats in this world,
but this was the one that loved me.