Cat

Does the cat remember you? Your lithe body, scattered laughter, the way you played together. Does he recall your first encounter, when you scooped him up and brought your face close to his, and I took your picture. I was nearly adolescent, and it was so beautiful to me, creatures shyly reconciling. Back then, I really thought life was about choices, that some love was not

predetermined. Did the cat see you, pouring dreams into your pillow, see your papers and your smell, your music and your impatience? Some nights I wake up and he’s looking at me, worried. Once, obtuse and hideous sobs emerged from my body, and the cat let out an unfamiliar cry, started biting my toes all over, and he knew you were gone for good. How could he not? It’s your ghost that he chases through the apartment, then finally turns and speaks to me, demanding over and over, What did you do? What did you do? Shame overwhelms me, and I can’t stand our loneliness. My love, I never wanted her to leave. My dear, I swear it. The table where you sat

and wrote, how he lived unflinchingly in your lap, your separation now is unnatural. Sometimes I thought you loved him more than I did, because your heart was structured that way. Extremely tender, fragile but like a wind chime, designed exactly for its melodic function. Does he remember the times you were short with him, frustrated by his bids for attention, his desire for you, his wish that you’d turn away from your books, from your crowded inner world? He was hardly public, he required little. Peering into your bath, washing stone and linen, a trail of bones

between us. Does he know how much you admired him? That you spoke often of his wiseness, the lessons in presence and enjoyment he exhibited. You’ve forgotten him completely now, and I tell myself any other way would be unbearable to you. How his little heart still beats, an old cat now, having spent the better part of his life in your arms, come back, his heart, come back, come back, come back.