The Dead Woman's Cat

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
fucked. 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.
Walking through a residential part of town
I frightened a cat into the street
where it was hit by a car.
The car drove on and the cat jumped
high in the air over and over to escape the pain.
I caught it and held it at the side of the road until it died
and left it in high grass behind a house, sorry I couldn’t do more for it.
A young boy on a bicycle stood nearby the whole time
then rode silently away.