My Cat of One by Rhea Lewin Geberer (wife)

My Cat of One


As I approach
and her arm
expands
towards me

(her foreleg really
though hard not
to see a hand
reaching),

she is suddenly
the child I never
had, the one-year old
whose mother opens

the bedroom door
to eyes lit by
knowledge beyond
days and years

to a face fired
by fragrances,
an ingathering
of my desserts.

I am not
a goddess
and neither is
my cat a pilgrim,

but to her
I swim in air,
tango as
a dream. She,

though, is real:
a refining of
non-combatant
passion

an Other
smelling of salt
small needs
a clinging seal.

God, how opulent
for my old years
of loyalty
and stone --

the sound of round body
I have wanted
for these arms
of drying rock!