The Patient

A rewrite of "Elain"

Patient admitted 9:32 p.m. 24 January 2012

second trimester miscarriage

For two months: there was

silence

then

in March of 2012,

I adopted a male black cat

named Elaine. I tried

calling him: Eli, Allen,

Elliot, Lane, but he would not

respond. Elaine didn’t meow,

he yowled like a woman on a soap opera,

like an underpaid porn star, like my mother

when she gets joint pain. But

his fur was long, and black,

and soft, and when he caught my hand

with his paw and the tips of his claws

dug, softly into my palm, I could picture

the tiny, delicate fingernails;

when the points of his spine

poked my thigh, I could imagine the cheekbones

I longed to trace with my thumb and hold

tightly against my chest.

There is little to be done

with the mother that never

was nor never planned

to be. Yet, here with my

little cat crandled

in my arms, catching

my hair in his teeth

and sucking it straight -

my eyes are dry.