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.
fog up the windows 
I’m not a cat person either but according to the hand written notes in cards my two young adult have given me for father’s day in recenct years, I was a good dad (tough love is harder on me than my two kids). As parents we can only do our best and give our children unconditional love.