the cat sat with me as I wrote this poem

It’s when she calls me at 8:55 in the morning

to tell me I forgot to put the hard-boiled eggs

in the fridge that I question my existence and

take half of an expired Percoset to distract me

from the orange raft floating slowly toward the

vortex. It’s when her mother calls me seventeen

minutes later to tell me a large black bear strolled

past her patio door that I remember the Folgers is

brewing, and I, too, can be a strolling black bear, 

a little less forgetful for the moment.