Writers Circle Prompt: Relationship with animals

 

The cats of my life 

by Susan Chast

1.
My two bonded adult black cats take days
to come out from under the furniture.
Why should they trust this new household as home
after five years of insecurity?
 
How to forgive them for not loving me
immediately?  How to be patient?
 
They mirror my reactions to bad breaks  
that hold me lonely and isolated
under the furniture of my own life
I’ve hewn from pine and built sound and strong.
 
How can I learn to love them
unconditionally?  How to be patient?
 
I know distrust holds back the fullness of faith
That humility would bring if I could swim
within the stream of human relationship
once more, take off my armor and swim.
 
How to let go of survival techniques
which keep us from knowing new depths?
 
I ask the two black cats to come on out
from hiding.  Let me hold you, please, let me
be of service to you—And love me, please,
don’t make me beg.  Don’t make me wait for you.
 
How to be patient with each other’s fears? 
How to negotiate our timeliness?
 
2.
I wake to purrs, so reach out slow and smooth
not to scare the little ones at rest.
Moving my mouth, I moan in cat meter.
 
In my rare dreams, my cats answer questions
unasked while I drink their strongest potions.
We are not yours, they explain. You are ours.
 
Do I want to know?  No insist cat gods.
I yawn and stretch. I’m tired and sore, willing
to recline, decline, wink and blink and nod.
 
3.
Before the one named Sabrina opened her heart
she trained me into food types and times—
and I wrote her into a mythic wild,
one who more than a witch’s familiar
had power over me, body and soul.
She ruled.  We obeyed, her sister Mariah and me.
 
Yet in the season of her death, Sabrina
adopted me.  Her eyes glowed with thanks.
Her chest warmed mine.  She released me and her
her sister without reproach.  Before the vet
showed the mercy needle, she closed her eyes.
She lightened. She took off.  She closed her eyes.
 
And now, as if Sabrina ordered her to,
sister Mar-eye-ah circles me with love.
She brings her strings, flirts with her golden eyes,
pets me with her softness, waits patiently
in doorways for me to feed her.  I leave, but
always return. Sabrina left, but doesn’t return.
 
4.
Halloween.
Now that the trick or treaters have gone, and
I light the candles, the cats of the past stop by.
Here is Pierette who lived to be nineteen,
and Miracle who lived to be twenty-two,
the first black and white as Pierro the clown
and the second a striped tortoise shell.  They
sit still as chess pieces, just washing their paws,
while Wicca and Red, the grey and the white
kittens, swat each other, and roll on the floor.
 
The cat on my chair arm, the black Mariah,
strains to leap away and hide from the strangers. 
Her twin didn’t show up.  Mariah’s fur stands
up in the candle light, and she jumps down from the chair
the apparitions are gone, but she sniffs the floor and cries. 

5.
What do you dream, Mariah my kitty? 
What do you dream?
Do you dream a lion’s dreams, red meat ready, new each day?
How disappointed are you when I serve canned food one way?
Do you dream a panther’s dreams, wild sleek as you stalk your prey?
You know I see you stretch like that each time you and I play.
I see you poised to catch live squirrels and birds through your TV window.
I think you’d find that harder than the toys I tease you with.
I curl like you in my frequent cat naps, but still don’t know
what you dream, my dear Mariah kitty. 
What do you dream?
Thanks to you I’ve discovered I’m an animal as well.
Thanks to you I’ve climbed down from the human pedestal.
I know I wouldn’t find wild beasts friendly as a domestic cat.
Indeed, I’m sure I look and smell like food beyond this habitat.
You’ve traded down quite a lot to share a home with me,
so I hope you get pleasure from how hard I try to please.
Thank you for your purr and poise, thank you for your company.
Thank you for your claws, noise, and stare when you want snacks from me
But tell me what you dream, sweet Mariah.
Tell me what you dream.

© 2025 Susan L. Chast

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