Poetry: What does a cat-sitter say?

By Cecilia Gigliotti

I wish I could be more like you:

Needing no one,

Vocal when I do.

Do you want to hear a song?

Do you acknowledge pitch?

Would you mew along?

Am I any good at conversing—

Or do you get a laugh

To hear me rehearsing?

You come and go impossibly silent;

I make myself known

Regardless of intent.

Will you indulge a traveler’s hope, or

Dismiss me simply: that

Intruder, interloper?

Later, when you decide where to sleep:

Am I unwitting territory,

Or a domain you keep?

Let’s learn to happily coexist.

My mind is a mill.

You will give it grist.

November 2021