Sweeping up the last traces
of you, just now, I pulled
out the furniture to find
stray tufts of fur in levitating
pompoms behind the end
table and the curtains.

This would be how I say
goodbye and a what voluntary
goodbye it was. Goodbye,
cat. See you later, maybe,
cat. Each sweeping motion,
casting you further away.

Like a throw pillow, you
adorned my bed. You spent
hours sinking claws into the
green blanket that I let you
take with you.

Wondered and waffled, I
did, about whether to keep
you and your perfectly spotted
coat.

The phrase “I’m just not a
cat person” becoming synonymous
with “I’m just a bad person.”

Should I even consider having
children if I can’t even keep
a cat? Just a moment, now,
it’s not nearly as simple as
that.

I just swept last week, cat. Yet,
your fur accumulates like the
slowest snowstorm. I brush
the floor with the white plastic
bristles, collecting all I have
left of you and contemplating
my voluntary goodbye.

With a jingle and a buzz,
my phone interjects: a photo
of you, snuggled up with some
stranger on a plush couch with
the green blanket.

Look at you, cat. You’re already
planting new snowflake pompoms
behind curtains, I bet.