-Cleo-

Direct from a breakfast of “Friskies Seafood Sensations”

my cat “Cleo”, (named after Cleo Laine the jazz singer,

NOT Cleopatra as some have assumed)

comes to me pantomiming whether or not
I thought there was a “cat heaven”.

I should answer in the affirmative.

after all, she’s only a few years old

and the truth when spoken aloud
could be depressing for both of us.

She's got Odilon's face!
Those olive-green eyes!

(curious how stiff and sharp

her whiskers are,— like pond reeds)

and when she sits at my feet like this

her tail lies straight back, like a length of pipe.

“Here. Go play with this”!

and I toss a jingling ball of textile fabric

across the carpet.

She's non-responsive.

So I answer her question directly to put an end to her curiosity:

“No. No cat heaven. Don’t be silly”!

Well, now she knows.

She licks the inside area of her hind leg
lifted above her head

for... I’d say 30 seconds and then

has a drink of water at her food station on the floor,
tucked against the wall at the end of the kitchen table.

So that's that. I know I've done the right thing.

What I don’t know is,
how many of her remaining lives has she used-up
in order to find the answer.