Your 4-month-old kitten got stuck in the hollowed out tree
Half a mile into the woods behind your home
The one where you used to stash old
Board games and magazines
He died on top of a stack of TV guides
Overnight

You get used to leaving more things unsaid
With each appraisal of the stones you
Mean to leave unturned
How the quiet moments in the margins of the night
Dry up in reverse burgeoning
And you fear them shriveling to show
The insulation beneath;
You wish you were more cynical of the outside world,
And more trusting of those close to you.
Aside from the hope you stockpile
In hidden shrines between your synapses,
Silence invites nothing worth fearing
And organic silence cradles the crumpled-up papers
Disproven hypotheses and stories from another life

Your mother left the soup on low
As long as it took you to return,
Thistles hanging from your jeans and forearms.
You are not yourself, and never have been.

You want to pull off the same trick now,
Keep the burner going long enough so that
The quiet moments carry, the soup stays
Warm enough for both of you enjoy.

The loose-leaf lectures remain unnecessary.
You wrote a eulogy that day, but never recited it.
The tree continued to grow.