little gray kitten

i know how the lost hurt kitten of your heart feels.

you have carried her softness so carefully, but she broke out

of a secret flaw inside, a fault line that

fractured your tiny kitten-bones to needles –

how they bent and wept!

 

come to me, and my womanhood

will gather in and bless what you cannot

seek or speak.

 

come, i will be a sustaining flower

for the fainting bee of your lost hopes.

i won’t ask why; i’ll simply do what must be done,

gather you into the medicine of my arms,

stitch the jaws of your injury closed, kiss your cold paws,

stroke that gray kitten back into her wholeness

bones and all.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2022

 

At the Closing

I pick up the worn shovel, handle frosty

and slick.  I feed it to the ground by the mimosa tree

and press hard with my weight on one foot.

The soil yields beautifully.

 

I know very soon, this sacred ground

will receive her of the dark gold hair, the bleached

muzzle, the eyes once alive as obsidian light,

that dog-breath smile.

 

The old girl is shaking this morning

and cannot rise.  I help lift her back end.

Her feet splay out on the floor.  Her eyes are worried,

even afraid.  I caress her bent head

leaning into my leg.  “I know, girl, I know.

Soon.  Will it be today?”  I don’t want to

answer that question yet,

 

but here I am, excavating the ground

between the vegetable garden and my favorite tree,

envisioning motherly soil holding her wasting

frame close, the swirls of her hair trimmed by fallen

 pine needles, her bones and blood that loved us so much

that she will forgive me and forgive me

for bringing that love to a peaceful

close. 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2022