April #2

Landscape for Clues

after reading Marge Piercy's 'The Cat's Song'

The cat will not speak her troubles,

but hides with them in the back yard ferns,

her eyes suddenly duller than autumn leaves.

Her white chest fur is dirty,

her backbone a line of mountains,

sharp as the Andes.

The cat does not speak her illness.

Her instinct is to shelter and die.

Her body is a landscape

to be felt for clues.

Medicine drags her back to life,

too slow, much too slow.

The cat sits on the bed,
close to the edge.

— Helen Patrice

(Tilly did come back to full health from pancreatitis. At the time of editing, she is our largest cat, very healthy, very stupid, and her hobby is hallucinating that the fence moves.)