around my neck

Still reluctant, I hesitate to learn.
Vivian, my fifteen-year-old cat who moved this year with me
from Boston to North Carolina,
has much to teach and doesn’t understand my holding back.
After all, we manifested this new reality,
quantum changes drove us south.
Even with her heart murmur and kidneys pooping out,
she rejected my purred and whispered blessings for her to die should she not
want to make the move.
She answered with a snarl,
“I want a big back yard and the opportunity
to run with dogs.
This is not about you.”
She’s amazing, I must confess.
Feisty spirit, cute little button, six pounds wet.
She brings life and alpha control
to the whole house.
Resistance is futile.
The problem lies with my refusing to let her wander beyond
the fences of our new backyard.
I see her sprawled and bloody, smashed by a car as she leaps for joy.
Crossing the street can be deadly.Believe me, I know.
She’s too old, won’t wear a collar,
chafes at confinement and telepathically shouts,
“Let me go. Your love is too tight.
I’m not your baby or decrepit mother.”
You said you could live without me. Why,are you giving fears license?”
Good question, I know,
yet I scoop her up and wear her
warm fuzzy stole around my neck,
soothing my aching motherless bones.
I want her part of meand not dancing
towards the light of her next life.

Barbara Marlowe
2003