My Boy Carlo

My Bagpipe Cat
A Poem for Barbara

There were fireflies floating over my flowers
As the sun parked its car in the earth,
And I was very pleased with that.

There were hummingbirds there in the morning,
Like jeweled brooches in a slow ballet,
And, of course, I was happy about that.

But there are no creatures, not bugs with lamps in their butts,
Nor tiny birds, nor the slow loris at our zoo,
That light me up half as much as my silken-eared bagpipe cat.

My cat's name is Carlo. His fur and his whiskers are black.
He'll be sleeping on the couch when I go off to work, and also when I get back.
He talks to me, and I talk to him back. He's my bagpipe cat.

He might be mistaken for a large baked potato,
He's a cat-belly with paws, and a tail, and a head.
One time I thought I saw him, but it was just a black tee-shirt on the bed.

When I sit by my computer, he demands a neck-and-head scratch.
He jumps up on my legs and puts his nose against mine.
That's when I tell myself,
"This is a bagpipe cat."

When I hold my cat he's always purring, which involves the use of his lungs,
He insists that my arms wrap around him
As if to say to say, "I am a bagpipe cat."

I listen to his purring, I measure each of his breaths.
I choose a moment when the air goes out,
I squeeze him, quick and suddenly, playing my bagpipe cat.

His body gives a little note of music, on a scale that only Carlo knows
When we're alone by the light of my screen-saver
And I'm playing my bagpipe cat.

One morning he follows me down the stairs, meowing for me to stay home.
Each time a paw lands on a wooden stair, his voice makes a louder sound.
"Meh-heh-heh-heh-heh," goes the tune, from the lungs of my bagpipe cat.

He has no job, and he can't catch a Frisbee,
He sleeps, he eats, he poops, and he sleeps again,
But he heals my wounds and makes a paw-print on my heart.
Of course he does. He's my bagpipe cat.