To My Long-Dead Cat

It’s time we settled some things.

You were not a very nice cat.

You were not a comforting presence in the house.

You avoided everyone except me,

And sometimes even me.

You hissed at the young daughter of a friend and made her cry.

She didn’t even try to touch you,

She just came too near.

Not cool.

 

I rescued you from a shelter.

You’d been abandoned, pregnant,

Or got pregnant after abandoned,

Had your litter.

After that I took you home.

You lived with me for 22 years,

Moody, aloof, unsettled.

You had no favorite part of the house,

No one place I could always count on finding you.

Sometimes you’d disappear.  I wouldn’t see you for hours.

Were you hiding, or looking for a way out?

One friend said you were probably digging a tunnel.

You were like a ghost on the premises.

 

Other times you’d lie in the middle of the room,

In everyone’s way,

Daring someone to approach too close

So you could demonstrate your displeasure.

After a while, being there was enough.

You no longer had to hiss.

The last two years of your life you were incontinent.

 

You’re still with me, oddly.

I put your ashes in an oval wooden box

That has some of your coloring—

Deep brown, auburn, a touch of gold.

You were a beauty outside.

What were you inside?

Perpetually unhappy, hurting, haunted?

Or none of the above.

Maybe you lived in perfect contentment,

Assured of being cared for,

Not knowing any other way to show it.

I look at you in your container every day.

 

Shortly after you passed, I swore I heard you running up the stairs,

The tags on your collar jingling.

One last escape for you,

Ghost cat.

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