Don’t think I don’t see you
scampering across my kitchen floor
with that scrap of yarn you’ve stolen
from my old green scarf,
you with your jumpy eyes,
your cold twitchy nose.
Don’t think that I don’t hear you
scratching in my inner walls
with your ever-growing teeth
and your tiny piercing claws.
I still run my fingers
across the thin scars.
And don’t think that just because
I took the cheese out of the trap
that I meant for you to come around.
Don’t think it was on purpose
that I left that piece
of lemon cake beside the bed,
the kind with cream cheese frosting,
the kind you told me once that you like best—
that time when you so sweetly curled
into my hands, your fur as gray as morning light,
I remember, so silken, so soft.