We park at pier 40 along the hudson
a cheap and dirty place, barely attended.
Snow clumps into unyielding gray mounds blocking our exit
and she yells...
at the cold, at the clumps, at the unyielding.
We kick and scrape and dig and clear
and then just sit in the cold car
with the wind whistling and wonder
coldly and silently
at what we have done and what we are doing.
And we go.
The first thing from the cages is a brown paw
poking insistently.
Set free for a minute, she ignores us
setting off directly to scale the tiled walls
toward a break in the sky
and a cold freedom she remembers.
Without a clue, we take her home
and the very first night there she vanishes
into our tiny few rooms.
A few hours in our care, a care of something beyond ourselves
and she is gone...
We scour the corners and ledges
the underneaths and the aboves
and come up empty.
Finally a slight warm bump inside a bag beneath a bed
and she emerges
with a whisker
stays on for 19 years
to teach us things
about intimacy and distance
inside small spaces.