Poem 3: elegy

Today's napowrimo prompt: "write an elegy – a poem that mourns or honors someone dead or something gone by. And I’d like to ask you to center the elegy on an unusual fact about the person or thing being mourned."

I've got lots of people who could be mourned -- grandparents, parents, friends, abstract segments of humanity inhumanly dispatched. But I'm feeling contrary. So:

*

Elegy for Circe

You arrived suspicious and reserved,
fur tangled with bitter burs
culled from a hard Arizona yard.

To enter and exit, you rang a bell,
giving the old man next door (poodle father)
a reluctant thrill. "Smart," he said,

leaning over the wire fence.
Strangers, like fellow cats, irritated
and bored you;

you hid from or ignored them,
content to lie under
the stunted orange tree

bursting its barrel,
as bird shadows flit
across your big paws.

Kitty knew to give you
a wide berth.
Dogs made you shake.

When we moved you to Michigan,
you shat in front of Lizzie's crib,
a perfect pile of disdain.

Only you made it here,
after Kitty stopped ticking,
and you lived for 3 years alone,

queen of Reed Street,
a massive gray wraith
balled on the couch.

After the kitten,
your kidneys failed.
I'll never forget you

wrapped warm as an infant
in the crook of my arm,
your faint rumble

as the vet slipped the needle in,
or how your limp leg
slipped out, after,

heavy and empty.