The Empty Box Theory
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The Empty Box Theory
The kittens are gone,
and my humans
have mistaken a quieter house
for solitude.
I have watched them
rediscover each other
with the astonishment of creatures
who have spent twenty years
looking everywhere for reading glasses,
only to discover them
in the fur on their heads.
There is something
about humans gone silver
discovering they still have appetites.
They spend decades
believing desire is a young animal,
then wake one morning
to find the old beast
sitting patiently
at the foot of the bed.
Age does not kill hunger.
It simply removes the need
to pretend
hunger is embarrassing.
My humans now look at each other differently.
Less like roommates. More like accomplices.
I approve of this.
After all,
life is short,
the human kits have moved out,
eventually everyone gets cold.
Personally,
I intend to spend my remaining years
pursuing the three great pleasures:
eating, sleeping,
and preventing anyone else
from having privacy.
Unlike my humans,
I have no need
to rediscover my appetite.
I never lost it.
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That could be my cat Luna.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy your poems from the non-human perspective and I can imagine more reflections through the eyes of cat. I think it would cause us to pause at some of our behaviours. This made me pause..."Age does not kill hunger. / It simply removes the need / to pretend / hunger is embarrassing."
ReplyDeleteI love, love this poem. Read it three times to understand it completely. Beautifully conceived and rendered. Now I want to write one from the point of view of my newest rescue dog, now sleeping with his chin on my knee in bed.
ReplyDeleteMy sixteen year old cat is struggling with appetite these days. He's supposed to have special food for his kidney and urinary problems but now often turns his nose up at it. It wasn't long ago that he would vacuum up his food so fast that he would often throw it back up again. Another nice write Chris, well done 👏
ReplyDeleteMe and that cat have similar outlooks on what we wanna do with our remaining lives...
ReplyDelete