Hang On a Little Bit Longer, Honey

Hang On a Little Bit Longer, Honey
for Petra

Shortly after we are married, my husband gets me to say
that if he and my cat were dangling from a cliff, and I could only
save one, that I would save him. We are in bed when I say this.

I know. Already you can see where this is going. He’s been asking me
for some time, and when we were engaged, I always said the cat.
But now I say, I would save you, honey. He’s curled up behind me,

his knees to my thighs, the smooth tops of his feet pressed
to the bottoms of mine. He has nice feet. I would save you, I say,
and he pulls me in tight to his chest.

And I pull the cat to mine.
Now you have to understand that this cat and I go way back.
I’m talking about Hamburger Helper when I couldn’t afford

the hamburger, and an apartment where a bat flew into the bathroom
one time. But that’s another poem. What I want to say here
is that the cat burrows under the covers, turning in her usual circles,

and lifts her pink nose to mine. She weighs fourteen pounds.
Most of that was put there by me, and by mayonnaise, but I never
mention that to the vet because she really likes it. Don’t judge.

I kiss my cat’s cool ears and smell her head, and she thrums hard
against my chest. Cats do this, you know, to heal one another.
Saw it on a nature show. In a colony, they gather around the downed

one and purr it back to life, or into the next. It’s a good send off.
So I ask you, what doesn’t this cat know of love? She is patient
and solid as a bowling ball. And she looks at me in green certainty,
like she would at the cliff, if her clipped claws were slipping on the rock.


Amanda Williamsen

Red Wheelbarrow, 2016