… cats…

Meg

I should like my gentle girl to have lived just one last Spring –

to take the sun in her favourite bower

and dance and sing in an April shower –

her final fling.

Stray

An uninvited guest in a shabby ginger coat

steals in and takes the scraps

left uneaten by my own choosy pair.

He cowers and fliches as though somebody’s hurt him.

His neediness repels me, yet I pity him as well.

Sometimes in the morning I’m aware he’s spent the night here

from the tufts of ginger fur he’s left behind,

but he’s neither loved nor cared for,

gets no treats or creature comforts,

just seeks some warmth and shelter,

so I don’t really mind.

One time I let him sit and stay and gazed into his eyes.

Their wistful, amber pleading touched my heart.

I would love this scruffy stranger,

take him in and make him welcome,

let him share our homely pleasures –

but I can’t.