Chard deNiord
KITTY
I called and called to no avail.
Each day was a ruse for the next, a subtle test
on which I thought I did so well, staying awake,
making calls, studying the psalms.
I added these sayings to my morning prayers,
"I am deceived by light. I think I see when I don't."
I took on the cat's inquisitive nature.
Got trapped in a closet and stared at the dark.
Sacrificed my thinking on the altar of a mouse.
I fought to restrain myself from becoming extreme
and lost. Searched the raspberries for the corpse of kitty,
calling out her name in the criminal woods.
I called this day different from all the others
to the laughter of birds and squirrels.
Walked calmly through the briar patch with a box
of treats, shaking the vittles, scaring the snakes.
The past consumed me for a while.
Washed over my eyes like a cloud
with every scene of her life captured inside.
I came down with a fever, placed the cool cloth
of the world's disregard on my brow.
I confused my memory of her with her soul.
I saw her as she was and felt the sting
of this day's palm across my face.
Tasted the iron of night on the back of my tongue.
I called this day no different from any other
at sunset. The sky answered, “Everything you say
is turned to silence in the ears of animals.”
I built a cenotaph in her likeness out of stone
and placed it in the garden among the catnip.
I wrote her epitaph on the base:
“My sweet ball of lightning. My little red coal.”
