BY JOHN
CATS
P. KRISTOFCO
twenty years they lived with us,
swaggered through the rooms they let us have,
letting us participate like statues
at the ritual of their disdain,
deigning to array our laps,
our beds when it was necessary,
kicking up the dust, their hair,
to davenports, chairs, everywhere,
in air we breathed,
the fine mist of their passing,
swept up, scrubbed down when we sold the house, moved,
choosing what to keep and leave;
we brought them in two boxes with the names on top,
set them on a bookshelf in my room,
quiet as their time curled in the sun,
still enigmatic, cryptic,
still letting us attend them
every time we come to dust the shelf
Gyroscope Review 16-4
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