Tuesday Morning Life and Death

Today’s draft is inspired by an animal doing animal things.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedI wake up early -- or rather --am woken up in the folded center of the nightby the pressure of the cat's nose on my forehead.She claims me with a head buttcurls into my ribcagepurrs herself to sleep.We sail the waves of an icy January night.We breathe together. On the other edge of mid-night,still in the dark pocket before dawn,I turn on the light and see a dead mouselaid precisely on the bedroom threshold.The cat snuggles deeper in the quilts.I consider my positionbetween sleeping cat and "sleeping" mouse,a life for a love.I am grateful, at a distance. Closer, I see the mouse's paws curled in,like miniatures of my cat.I lift the mouse and gently place it in the kitchen trash,inter it under clean paper towels and coffee grounds.A full-body morning yawnfresh coffeeall the lights on against what moves in darkness--I take my place in my writing chair.The cat climbs up beside me, cleans her paws of every trace of death.