Life in Cat Years

In the overstuffed chair

I remember how you nestled

into a spiral, my favorite geometry those last nights

before you went away

mornings were always wild 

it was how you saw life, 

your job my alarm 

a bell rung on the farm

where coffee and eggs waited on chores, feed bowls, sparkling water

pretending you and your brother 

were not needy

more so, I saw essential meaning

for decades tended others of your kind

who so softly appeared

heartbreakingly departed 

a steady stream of maternal gems