What Cats Can Teach You about Parenting

Okay, the kids are back at school and I thought I'd try to write a poem about the first thing I saw.

The Visiting Cat

We don’t know who owns

the black and white cat

that comes to our back door

but my girl named her Mischief

and now it feels like she couldn't

be called anything else.

That’s the way it is with children

making their mark on the world -

there’s no going back
and life feels as irrefutable

as this damp cat, tail aloft,

bumping her head off my shins

not in or out, always close

to the open door.

She sniffs the empty air

where, minutes before, 
the kids bustled out to school,

all lunch boxes and late protests,

their faces lit with purpose.