Adjustments

Come now, beautiful boyfriend, here is morning.

Get up! Off you go, handsome. Breakfast’s waiting.

But no. Clings to me, this one, lately, bless him —

just since Freya, his sister, died and left us.

He grooms me assiduously, with finger licks

and sharp little nips, as if I’m one of his pack.

She used to speak for them both, but now

he’s found his own voice, and he’s exerting it.

He tries to tell me everything, in that low-toned

scratchy little chirrup of a miaow. I try to understand.

He seldom comes to bed with me; he never did.

But I find him beside my pillow every day when I wake.

Nights, he is off about his own business — mostly

lying on the cool top step, guardian of our home.

During the day he follows me about like a faithful dog,

and lies at my feet; or else on the spare bed, and calls me.

I go to him when he calls, and talk to him, and we smooch.
He is not imperious, as she was, but he may be learning.

31 Poems in 31 Days (from Poewar /Writer's Resource Center). Prompt: A poem of three or more verses, the first two metered, the rest unmetered. My first two verses are in hendecasyllabic metre, because I wanted something which wouldn't make too great a demarcation from the rest. (There are various explanations of hendecasyllabic; Ive linked you to the variant I used.)