The dead woman’s cat in the furrows of the garden
does not let herself be picked up
although hungry and thin after five days
with the dead woman and a night in the rain.
It has gone to join the other feral cats
among the junk behind the house. To be outrageously
******. On my way to work I try to entice it
with false friendship, guilt that the dead woman is dead.

On my way home I buy a can of cat food
but can’t find the cat. I let her go
to her fate. Later that night I try again
but there’s a tom waiting in her place.

Maybe I could have saved her if I’d known
her husband overdosed last week. Just maybe,
no more.
I ask the neighbors what happened to the kid.
The kid lives with her grandparents, they just used her for welfare.

I used to say
Somebody dies every day, it’s normal.
Finding and being found
by a woman, enjoying some romance, having children
and in that context earning a living
which becomes what you say when someone asks
what you do.
Doing something that proves you are alive
since the outcome will so easily be the opposite.
Stay near the earth people
that’s the way to grow old.