Too many times I rise
in obeisance to passionate mewing
then open the front door and watch
the gray tabby stand there, quite still
as if suddenly overcome by a feline epiphany
of unknown nature.
The Siamese, though, is a man of action,
climbing a curtain in the blink of a cat-eye
to kill and eat a rare butterfly
and cough the whole thing up with
hair and white sauce on the Persian rug.
The brown kitten is a she-devil,
a demon possessed beast
coming for the damned with
a hairy arm scraping and pawing
under the bathroom door while I cower with
the latest issue of Field and Stream.
Yet one warm day when I should be
staring at the ocean, I almost see
a black cat, gone these five years,
standing in a white sink, tail skyward,
drinking affectionately
from a narrow stream of proffered water.
He kept me warm on winter nights
and waited by the gate when I was out walking.
A quiet despair settles like night,
a lonely place
from grief for all the dead
that left joyful footprints
across this empty landscape.
These furry problems, these wild rebels
come with troubles, like all my true friends.