My Other Cat

A poem in two households.

I have two cats,
one lives with my dad,
and one with my mom.

My dad scratches his head when he’s anxious,
and he does it a lot,
and his cat keeps purring, that happy cat,
who even isn’t afraid of being picked up;
he’s so gentle, I wish I got to see him more.

My mom hesitates when she says “my…boyfriend,”
and she sleeps on the couch because she snores,
but unlike her…boyfriend, my other cat doesn’t mind,
because she sleeps on the couch too, sometimes.
If she’s not asleep on the couch at night,
she’s on her little bed, which was bought for the dogs,
ironically, because that little small cat is petrified by the four big dogs;
night time is the only time she lets me pet her,
because whenever I do during the day, the dogs bark,
but she doesn’t realize the dogs would bark anyway;
we have a birdfeeder on the tree, right in front of the windows,
and…he leaves the curtains open all day.