Animals Decide When to Die by Jayne Marek

Animals Decide When to Die
Jayne Marek

Old cat, my little love, as you withdraw
along with the declining days in October
and fold yourself into slanting light,
you seem quiet and neat as rolled-up socks.
I wish you had no pain, but your stillness
protects its secrets. I can only guess
what your slitted eyes examine. At
the window, leaves perch like orange birds
with wings folded. I must slip across your vision
as a blur, an erasure of a patch of sun
on the floor. I can’t tell you that I understand
being close to the door that only opens once.
Language fails as it always has—yours to me,
mine to you. Only a body can convey
how shadows rise inside, a tide of aches
overfilling aches until the shoreline lets go.