The Shadow Cat

Ciaran O’Driscoll

The cat sits on the ledge inside the window and watches me returning through the dusk. Predictable as the hands of a clock,
the eyes of the cat are on my return.
Behind the cat, a fire has just been lit.
I fix myself a quick identity,
relating to these three, dusk, fire and cat: a man a cat is watching in the dusk watching a cat in the glow of a fire.
The dusk is snowflakes falling in the deep. A shadow at its heart consumes the fire. The cat's a shadow-cat, an edgeless blur.
Run to me, love, when I open the door, and hold me as you do falling asleep.