On The Cat Walk

Stories Worth Sharing: On The Cat Walk

On The Cat Walk

There was a whisper of a chance
anyone she asked was
missing the gray cat
her neighbor, two houses down,
found on the stoop last night

I wasn't missing a cat and no one
had mentioned it here,
five blocks from where
it was found

Not until two days later when
we heard the children,
like mewling kittens,
searching for the cat

They were walking and
knocking, house to house,
door to door with their mother
repeating their plea again and
again

we lost our cat,
have you seen a cat?
a gray cat?

we lost our cat,
have you seen a cat?
a gray cat?

When they came to
the door and once again
said we lost our cat,
have you seen a cat?
a gray cat?

I said I hadn't seen a
cat, a gray cat ... but
five blocks away someone
said they found a cat,
a gray cat

The news, like catnip
infused them with them giddy
anticipation, leaving them
unable to focus

So we walked together to the
house five blocks away
where the cat was found
on the stoop of the
house on the corner

Like a merry band in a
parade, the cat walk
took us one block up,
three down, and one over

And there she was,
the cat, the gray cat
just one block from home,
behind a floor-to-ceiling
glass door, in the house
on the corner where she
was found

The cat preened and paced at
the rush of children on the
other side of the glass, and
on our walk home we purred
over the success of their
clawing persistence in
finding their cat

the gray cat