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.

Comments

Mnmom said…
Losing them is so hard. So very hard.

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