Strange Creatures

I thought it might have been

the neighbor’s cat, a dusty thing,

and kind, who bowed her head

in a sort of reverence toward

any open hand, but the thing

that lumbered out of the bushes

was far too big. An opossum,

strange, quick-eyed, and grey,

made her way from the shadows

and into the sun of your lawn,

on the gentle mission she called her life.

Once, walking down the side street

of a city as sandy and sun-washed

as our own, you told me that you’d like

to live with me when we got out of here

- if we ever figured out how -

and I think I believed you. I began to talk

of tattered rugs and shoes by the door,

but you turned your eyes from mine,

some rotting premonition sitting under

your tongue. Now, we stand

in the kitchen of the home you made

with another, and watch the opossum

reach out toward the ripening tomato

and take a bite. That nearly newborn

fruit never quite got the chance

to flower, but it will come back,

somehow, in it’s own way.