20 years old
lost 1 and a half litters
and her mate five years ago
in a flood
vet says she’s super healthy
and she’s a furball of love
wisdom and mischief
in her catty eyeballs

and here i sit thinking about
a cat that’s lived more life than
i have in my entire life

They have been together,
give or take, for fifteen years.

Their marriage in the clasp
of puberty, its voice deepening,
its stubble sprouting.

Not long ago, shopping.
Necessary. Kid’s birthday.
It comes around quick,
like lunch, paying for the Ploughman’s
at the self-service in town
when the clock flicks to twelve.

Her right hand on his right hand.
They still do this,
though not quite as often.

Today,
he returns from work, wrenches
the tie out from beneath the collar
of a shirt she ironed yesterday.
Son, out.
Daughter, also out.

The fridge plagued with magnets
and a list; Milk,
                  Bread,
                  Eggs?
Inside, two beers,
sweating cold.
Later, he thinks.

How’s your day been darling?
We need to be at the school at six.
Oh yes.
They need to hear
how their progenies
excel at the expressive arts.
He hasn’t been expressive in years.

Hours expire.
Now his bare feet slide
under the duvet.
The wife reads a while,
Sunday Times bestseller.

Then she hugs him,
touches the skin she has known
since she was nineteen
at Northampton, literary sponge
absorbing Shakespeare and Joyce.

It is warm.
It is something
that has not changed.
The two of them are content.
They know they can
always have this.

Have you ever been told as a child
that you were difficult to deal with
because you didn’t want to sit down,
or limit your drawings to a paper sheet,
or make all of your homework during the weekend—
all of our family came over, please!—
or didn’t keep quiet when adults told you to,
for you always had the answer right under your tongue?

Did they ever call you
hyperactive, or
a monkey, or
an airhead, or
simply trouble?
Did you just get on their nerves?

I wish I had been like that,
a difficult child.
Why would I say that! That’s nonsense.
I wish I had known how to stay away from the
little adult factory.
When I spoke my mind, it felt like a slap in everyone’s faces
because I had always been silent, and a kid this quiet
when speaks his mind, oh, he roars.
I was talked down when I finally did something I enjoyed
and felt accused because I was,
as they said,
breaking out of my shell.
And if that was a good thing
why did everyone make it seem bad?

If I’m getting my wisdom teeth that means
I can go to the movies with my friends, right?
Not that they’re already going out at night,
or whatever. I guess that’s a word I use now—
whatever. Puberty was when I got the most difficult,
and I wasn’t even that bad.

I was born an easy adult
and I can’t even adult right.
I guess that’s because I was never a difficult child.
I don’t know how far I can push myself
before I fall off the end of the world.

Someday you’ll love you.
From the sparkle in your eye,
To the pitch of your laugh,
Even the color of your hair.

You will love every part,
From every wrinkle,
To every crinkle,
Every part of you.

But they will try to tear you down,
To make you frown,
To make you think you’re not worth it.

But darling you listen to me.

From the way you walk,
To the way you talk,
You will be mocked,
But don’t you listen.

From your weight,
To your height,
You are all wonderful to me.

Maybe one day you’ll see,
The beauty I see.
The way you were made,
So beautifully.

But until then,
Do not forget,
On how true beauty,
Comes from within.