cat name poem

Frida, cat I named you.
You could care less.
But what are you, if the name I chose
has no meaning?
What must a cat
call itself?
Dust stirrer, bug stalker, button fiend, purr singer
tooth tongue?
Shadow jumper, snake tail, pink ear war-maker
carpet keeper, big paw, quick claw?
And what am I to you without names?
Chair setter? Soft tongue,
drum heart nest, blanket shaker,
ribbon stealer, kill sock thief?
Long-finger, mouth maker,
two hand no-no?

Two Poems.

One.
Where are you going, my love?

Where have you been?

I have been to the kitchen and back

-to the living room.

I climbed the walls of our garden -

a copper penny

under my tongue

to buy you from the dead.

I knew you had gone.

Where are you going, love?

Where have you been?

My hands are as pale and white

as the stars.

They live in the water

- you drown me

before my time.

Where have you been my love?

Where are you going?

Wherever, I tell you, I have

been there and back again.

It is better here.

When we are together

- a copper penny pressed between us.

Loneliness is what I do

without you.



Two.

I climbed our garden wall, love.

I could not go as I am,

so I left my clothes behind -

folded like sleeping pilgrims on our bed.

The brambles tore my skin.

I left my coat as well, you see.

Outside the gates,

I left my shoes -

their empty shape

was so like my own.