White Kitten
by Carly Madison Taylor
CW: Pet Death
In hindsight I know that the white kitten
will be dead this time tomorrow &
that you’ll be holding me while I cry
about it & then suddenly about my parents,
who will be dead sometime, too.
Someday I’ll hang the picture I just took
of you cradling her fragile body
& smiling, laughing, actually, at the first
& last time we got to hear her purr.
I know that you’ll learn that why
my life is so beautiful to guests
is guilt & that I cannot stop cleaning
or wishing for quiet, cluttered surfaces.
Here on my kitchen floor while we kiss to Cat Stevens
& I don’t know that the kitten will be dead tomorrow
I notice that I am more in love with you
than I realized & I am fucking panicked.
Everything will make me panic. I promise.
But I also promise I’ll try to let you clean, too,
I’ll try to look back: you kissed me on the kitchen floor
& the next day I pressed my face
into that sweet ghost kitten’s fur & thanked her
for a little of her time & it was worth it.
It was snowing when you came over.
I was not ready to be the adult at the vet’s office
who decided to take a life this cold
Spring without any kind of order. This weeping.
This hush between our bodies where in hindsight I saw a rule:
this is the way that you are, messy & good,
cradling bits of me gently, laughing.
Carly Madison Taylor is a poet, songwriter, painter, and essayist living in Buffalo, NY. They earned their BA in Creative Writing and Dance Studies from Knox College in 2016. They serve as Art Editor for Variant Lit. More of their work can be found at Poke, Ghost City Review, Crêpe & Penn, Boston Accent Lit, and elsewhere. They’re on Twitter @carma_t.