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