Catnap 

Please, let me revisit

one sundrenched summer morning-- us

watching Mother work on her quilt

carefully stitching each fabric square to the next.

Your marble eyes thinning to her fingers

as if pondering a pounce. Instead, in gentle defiance

you inspect her day’s work and she laughs.

A velvet square amongst Mother’s patchwork,

you lay down: a gray-striped tabby, a living thing.

For a while longer, she worked and I watched

and we talked about what you might be dreaming of.

Until your eyes open into drowsy slits, rolling over to rise.

You bathe and stride into the kitchen, stepping 

along her quilt as if the stitches were your own.

You linger in the doorway. Hungry. Summoning.

Eager for an early dinner or some treat, some

mysterious calling for us all to follow.

If you still lived, I’d pluck you like a ripened tomato

from your resting spot in the sun, slinging

your catnapping lull into the hold of my arms.

Just to tell you that we keep your whiskers

in an old bottle whose lid we painted baby-blue.

Each thin needle a sign of our love. Just to say

that we cared enough to find them, to hold on

to what life you had, now turned memory.

When I am in the garden, and I smell

the Earth you used to romp in,

the dirt you’d roll into perfume,

I can picture your form, so curled on her quilted spread,

So simple. Gentle. So loved. How we buried 

your soft body by your favorite spot. How 

I wanted to give you that quilt

to keep you warm under roots and trees. 

Under the winters you used to spend inside. How

when you tottered out our door and into forever,

you left only the smell of Earth, tucked 

between each soft stripe.