Oh darling cat
Caring cautious calm
Dead.
Cat dead
We will never love again
Again
We’ll never love again.
You died a painful death
Foolish
Cat
Why
Did
You
Climb
Into the engine
Of that auto
When I was here
Right here
Waiting for you to scratch
At the latch.
Or was I here?
That was the end
Of my second week
Without relief
Pounding out
What has become
With this awful news
An implicating mistake I wish I could erase.
Did I just not hear you scratching?
Oh darling cat
You are not the first love I have lost
At such a terribly high cost.
© Susan Lynn Gesmer, The Cat Poems, 1980