[Editors’ Note: Learn about how the “Nine Poets Speak” series came to be in place here.]
Photo by Matthew Larkin, on Unsplash
Living alone and feeling lonely,
I was looking for comfort,
but my one-bedroom apartment
has a no-pets policy.
How I longed for the sensual
and intelligent presence
of a feline companion,
a conversation partner
who would nuzzle me and purr
when we went to sleep,
a furry friendly familiar
adept at mind-to-mind communication.
I saw no way out of loneliness
until one morning I woke
with the poem title "My Imaginary Cat"
and the name "Phoebe."
I couldn't resist.
I started thinking about Phoebe,
trying to see her in my mind's eye,
and soon enough I was talking to her out loud,
like the child with an imaginary friend.
Phoebe seemed to reconnect me
with my childhood memories of play.
My mother would drape a bed sheet
over the kitchen table,
and my little brother and I
would crawl into the cave under the table
with our black tomcat, who was so gentle
that my brother used him as a pillow.
We had no trouble believing we were in a cave,
nor did we have any trouble believing that
the rusty swing set in the backyard
was our log cabin.
Now, as post-industrial civilization
comes slowly, then quickly, undone,
I crave the simple pleasures of childhood play,
and Phoebe, my imaginary cat,
gives them to me with her attention
and her dance of response.