Going Away.
On St. Valentine's Day my True Love gave to me:
My beloved runs naked into my bedroom.
It's Otis! It's Otis!
And it is. Was.
I can't really get into it.
The worst/best part was burying him in my parents' backyard
wrapped in a flowered sheet
Steven has brought incense
The kind I like
An expensive gift.
This will be a Buddhist ceremony, apparently.
He breaks the stick in two
hands me one half
lights them
put it to your forehead
then put it in with Otis.
I put it in
and burn my finger on Steven's embered end
And I am kneeling in the soft garden soil
sobbing
When I get up and around
Da is holding up the side of the house.
That was real nice he says.
And I weep all over him.
-----------------
I asked the Steven what he thought Otis' next reincarnation would be. "Magnificent." And that is a very fine answer.
Or maybe that is the highest one can be to enlightenment: a charming, happy, loving, weird, troublesome house cat. Our cat. The first we chose together. And Otis said, "Yes!" And loved us back.
My beloved runs naked into my bedroom.
It's Otis! It's Otis!
And it is. Was.
I can't really get into it.
The worst/best part was burying him in my parents' backyard
wrapped in a flowered sheet
Steven has brought incense
The kind I like
An expensive gift.
This will be a Buddhist ceremony, apparently.
He breaks the stick in two
hands me one half
lights them
put it to your forehead
then put it in with Otis.
I put it in
and burn my finger on Steven's embered end
And I am kneeling in the soft garden soil
sobbing
When I get up and around
Da is holding up the side of the house.
That was real nice he says.
And I weep all over him.
-----------------
I asked the Steven what he thought Otis' next reincarnation would be. "Magnificent." And that is a very fine answer.
Or maybe that is the highest one can be to enlightenment: a charming, happy, loving, weird, troublesome house cat. Our cat. The first we chose together. And Otis said, "Yes!" And loved us back.
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