The cat remembers you in your absence. Eyes lit,
she waits for the stories you tell us. Restless,
she walks my window sill with her fur bristling,
complicit, when she senses your arrival.
You always come by night. I know who you are, why you come
and I offer you the silence of a small room at the back,
the back shadows on my skin, and time
for the repeat of an inevitable gesture. I hear you tell
the same tale with the newest lips. I learn it
and forget it. We’ll never know it by heart, the cat or me.
Then you leave. You carry with you your voice, but its music
stays. I slowly close the doors. The cat meows faintly
at the window. No one waves: we keep with others
the secret of your visits. Both of us. The cat and I.