'Ginger' Poem by Eric Nunnally

There was a cat once—
not just any cat—
but Ginger,
who announced herself
long before she ever entered a room.

Her voice came first:
a kind of operatic insistence,
half-demand, half-affection,
the sound of a creature
absolutely certain
that the world was meant to answer her.
Loud—yes.
But sweetly so,
as if every complaint arrived
wrapped in purrs.

Her coat was short and bristled,
tabby marked with a rusty warmth in the gray,
a palette the sun adored.
She always found the square of light on the carpet,
the one warm enough to soften her bones,
and she claimed it like a small queen
returning to her rightful throne.

She came to us as a kitten,
brought home by the big girls,
who later went on with their lives
while Ginger and her sister Angel stayed behind—
two tiny monarchs ruling a kingdom
that never quite agreed to be ruled.

It wasn't always easy.
Dea cursed the scratched doorframes,
the shredded carpet fibers,
the stains in corners we swore we had cleaned
just the day before.
We tried to keep up,
but Ginger lived by her own constitution:
Wherever I am is allowed.
Whatever I do is justified.
Whoever disagrees is wrong.

And still—
she was a darling.

Ginger loved the sweet rake of her tongue
across whatever part of me she decided to groom:
my hand, my arm, sometimes my beard,
as if I were one of her own unruly children
and she alone knew how to set me right.

At night she slept between my knees,
curled into the warm hollow
as if heat itself had chosen her.
If the door was closed,
she scratched until it wasn't.
If the carpet stood in her way,
she rearranged it.

She spoke her mind at mealtimes
with the volume of a creature
convinced hunger was a moral emergency.
She rolled in the garden,
sniffed flowers,
chewed grass she had no intention of keeping,
then sprawled on the warm sidewalk
like a tourist on holiday.

And there were the other things—
the parts we laugh about now
because grief has softened them
into something tender:

The catastrophic trips to the vet
that turned her into a banshee
inside her carrier,
screaming like the world was ending
and sometimes bloodying her claws
because she would rather fight steel
than be confined.

The gifts she brought to the doorstep—
mice, snakes, birds—
each offering left with the solemn pride
of a warrior returning from battle.

The teeth she lost.
The nail she scraped on the rusted edge of something
we never found.
The moments she refused to chew her food
because chewing, apparently,
was optional.

She ran from consequences
with the speed of a rumor.
She tolerated Penny
with the weary patience of a nun.
She and Angel left clumps of fur
in the garage after their disagreements,
both of them stepping out afterward
with the suspicious innocence
of creatures who had absolutely
done nothing wrong.

But oh—
the tenderness.

The way she would climb onto my chest
and settle there,
squinting into sunlight
as if it were a blessing.
The rub against my leg
when she wanted to be near
but not observed too closely.
The stories she told in chirps and trills,
conversations I still hear
in quiet rooms.

For all her trouble,
she gave more sweetness
than she ever took away.

Ginger lived with us for years—
our loud, impossible,
beautiful girl—
until one day she didn't.

And now,
sometimes in late afternoon,
when the sun lays itself
in a square of yellow on the carpet,
I still expect her to be there—
a bristled body warming in the light,
her green-tinted eyes half-closed
in that expression of absolute contentment
she saved for the simplest things.

And I think:
What a privilege it was
to love a creature
who never once apologized
for being entirely herself.

My Ginger.
Loud.
Sweet.
Infuriating.
Perfect.
And gone—
but never, not once,
out of mind.