Missing Cat by Freesia McKee

In a few hours I’ll score

my loss and blessings

 

lying in bed like the cats

we count when we walk

 

the dog When I was a small kid

spring was palm fronds

 

shaking hands in church In the pew

I closed my eyes The green backdrop

 

behind the cat Misu hides

under the bench In this city

 

I’m supposed to be a teacher

Mispronounced a student’s name

 

for weeks Would we say something

again if we knew the other person would

 

change My

assumption

 

as Misu’s tail wraps around my wrist

I think of eating lunch once

 

when we got a phone call A friend

had died We thought we knew who

 

I stopped chewing I remember

the carrots in my mouth

 

The hunched shoulders the shudder

before a second phone call a miracle

 

from the person we thought was gone

It rained so hard when we drove here

 

A wet accident at the end of our block

Could have been her or us

 

The cat running past

Rubbing his soft head against

 

my calves Misu’s back

He’s re-appeared I’m want to tell

 

our neighbor Oobi

his cat’s escaped the trains cars

 

the predators this time Only loss

can redeem itself like this

---

Freesia McKee is author of the chapbook How Distant the City (Headmistress Press, 2017). Her words have appeared in cream city review, The Feminist Wire, Painted Bride Quarterly, Gertrude, Huffington Post, and Sundress Press’s anthology Political Punch: Contemporary Poems on the Politics of Identity. She has performed poetry in bookstores, prisons, classrooms, summer camps, arts groups, and youth programs. Freesia lives in North Miami.