Remnants

My new black cat

follows me into the kitchen.

She tries to persuade me

she is owed food.

I look at her rounded belly

and refuse. With only a brief glare,

she accepts this and strolls back 

to her chair beside the computer. 

She likes to be where I am. 

That is her safety, so far.

In the empty kitchen I see

my old black cat, who was with me

17 years. He is rattling cupboard doors, 

banging them one by one with his nose.

He knows it won't make them open;

it is a message to me, like prisoners

clanging metal mugs on a bench.

Other times, he sprawls on the spare bed

at the far end of the house. He doesn't need
proximity, to feel connected.












He is only here in my mind now.

My new girl cat

looks out through the flywire screen

at the front yard and the street.

Dogs bark. Other cats squall, fighting.

She stays indoors. I indulge her.

She looks out instead to the back garden:

a small space where nothing happens

except the growth of weeds.

Bored, she goes back to her chair.

I won't force the issue.

My last girl cat,

who was with me 16 years, 

wanders across the lawn

lifting her paws high and deliberately

out of the grass, like a dancer.

She is coming to greet me.

If I'm inside, she might well bring me

the fat corpse of a bird. 

Then I'll yell, and she’ll grip it 

and run back down the steps.

But she's only here in my mind, now.

Go to sleep, my children.

Dear visitors, time to leave once more,

until your next look in.

I will be here.

Dear newcomer, take the time you need.

We are neither of us young, but we have

whatever remains to be …
the whole of our lives.

Written for Day 16 of Poetry Month at 'imaginary garden with real toads' – about remains, remaining, or remainders.