Jeannette Angell

Missing You

—for Spike, cat-companion of fourteen years

Since you’ve gone
the earth has turned on its axis
so many days and nights
I’ve lost count of the time

(although at first I knew,
measuring what remained of my own life
as Day One, Day Two, calculating
the long lonely stretches
of time without you)

I hear the news, and know

my grief is small: there are more pressing problems
in the world.
My grief is small: just large enough
to drown my heart.


I know that I'll survive and carry on

(though many times I wish
I wouldn’t)

and that one day I will wake up
and my first thought won’t be
of how much I miss you—

And then you’ll be truly gone.

CP

Jeannette Angell is a novelist, playwright, and occasional poet who lives and works in an old sea-captain's house at the tip of Cape Cod. More at www.jeannetteangell.com.