ON CATS AND SEPARATION

Two cats

captured in mock bronze

neither cheap

nor tawdry

“an approximation of the Real McCoy”

you once stated.

Of the divine Rosie and Malika

who smelled of hot fur,

straw from the cattery,

vile food

and, occasionally,

grass and vomit!

Their vitality,

their lithe writhings

were

oh

so

real.

This statue, this mocking bronze

cast

amongst myriad memories

of you

smells, now, of nothing.

Not even the desolation

I once managed to attribute to it.