Passer-by

There appears in your backyard a pure white cat with pink ears you never saw before who looks at you calmly as you stamp and shush and sting your hands clapping it off. In its own time it starts away and moves in mystery and dignity. What if the trespasser were an angel? Would you say you don't like cats then? If you want the best in everything doesn't that call for your best? The floating walk, the sprightly carriage speak authority, the absence of a collar, available. It turns to look back - only once, in its eyes a curiosity, a gentleness, utterly without recrimination. You wonder why the rooms of your house have a hollow ring when you go back in, why a surge of feeling crosses the dark silence, why your arms thorny as cactus branches ache for embrace.