Friday, July 24, 2026

A Poem

Compassion


Your compassion brings rabid cats home.

You feed them vegan food and bathe them 

in our sink. When I tell you to get rid of them

you say I’m being callous. I want to love

you, but there’s fur in the way. Walls of disease

stand between us. I want you to take my hand

and force me through the fierce bewilderment

of being a man. When uncertainty surrounds me

I want you to sit in the midst of it talking me 

through the fog. I want you to clean the house

and make it as bright as a lemon drop. Something

about me will ache forever. For now there is no 

place to go but here. How many cats can you fit

into the den? No one needs to know about us. 

We live by recollection. All the things we recall

are shelved in our bedroom where I keep the things

that no longer interest me. We live in insistent 

sunlight. 


No comments:

Post a Comment