Dining-room cat

 
Dining-room cat
 
So this is what this grief is like.
This time it’s taken
seven weeks to hit.
I was waiting and thinking
maybe it wouldn’t.
 
Connected
by the invisible
cut but not cut cord
all my life,
so like each other
in mannerisms
and talents.
The last person I was allowed to hug.
 
Yesterday I brought home
Dining-room cat, a painting
your grandmother gave you,
and with it I brought the grief
at last.
 
Symbolic of you, Dining-room cat
has been there all my life
the archetypal cat
as you were, to me,
the archetypal mother.