Kitty Poem by Lewis Bosworth

i.
At the kitchen table,
when it was still light,
I could see, through the
condensation on the panes,
the artificial spring.
February, it was, and the sun
was playing with the slits of the
worn-out, whitewashed fence.
ii.
The sun was about to set,
and the winter-worn pickets,
in need of a paint-job, and
not quite straight, seemed to be
lenses focusing on the snow. A
solar-graph. Bars and shadows
plotted symmetrically along
a curve, with shadowy slats
viewed through the windows.
iii.
The snow was disturbed, traces
and tracks of my little cat, I
imagined. She was not home.
The barren branches of the Ash
trees and some of summer’s
stronger, left-over weeds were
the only other marks on the snow.
iv.
She had to have stalked those
pickets, back and forth across the
yard’s expanse, kneading and prancing
a calculated path, in search of a bird,
perhaps, or a nest of rodents, hiding,
she hoped, under the pine-cones
covering blankets of dying oak leaves.
v.
I looked longer, as the sun set, and
she did not complete her geometric
tour of the yard. As I closed the curtains,
I found her asleep in a chair. Then I knew
that my little cat couldn’t be fooled
by artificial spring and its brief
moments of sun
vi.
Later, when the sun focuses on
shades of green, and the Ash trees
mar the brilliance of the grass, my cat
will take off, and my eyes will grow
dim as I gaze at a photograph never taken.