More from ALTE #14: Non-Human Beings

To see the rest of the new edition ALTE: Getting Old Together, click here.

FOR FRANCOIS, MY CAT OF MANY YEARS GONE MISSING

Mikhail Horowitz

The darkness made of itself a lap.

You climbed in, did your customary three little circles,

and got cozy. The forest breeze, soft as the end of summer,

purred in the pines, and smoothed you into sleep.

Forgive me if this is overly sentimental. You,

named for the vagabond poet Villon, were certainly

not. A thousand mice rejoice, along with as many moles,

shrews, birds, and baby rabbits, at your presumed demise;

your sisters don’t seem to acknowledge your

absence, and the cocky young tom we adopted

last fall is already curled up, chortling,

in the crease you left in Carol’s pillow.

But the jaunty air you affected, sir,

your tail straight up like Cyrano’s panache

as you trotted toward us, home from another

foray―that sense of invincible mischief,

of irrepressible rakishness, will be remembered

with fierce affection: something to carry, lightly,

into the furtive coming of our own darkness,

the wary wandering into our own last woods.