I’ve been cradling the heavy cat in the half-dark
For an hourÂ
She likes how I make her feelÂ
And I like her—Â
I was mean to the dogÂ
And now he’s deadÂ
Well, not meanÂ
Cold in momentsÂ
He could have used the warmthÂ
I could tell and still did nothing about it
And so here I amÂ
Paying—Â
Which I am accustomed toÂ
And anyhow I am happyÂ
To pay for such horrors, such ill manners
Of my characterÂ
Even if I do blame you for it—Â
How can I empathize with anythingÂ
When I can’t remember empathyÂ
And you are the only mountainÂ
For miles all aroundÂ
I’ve had to learn to be kind againÂ
To uncoil my tendrils into the lightÂ
Sometimes I pretend you are not a person
But a stone (how could I love
people again, if I didn’t?)Â
And I warn them: Little Ones,Â
Don’t learn from stones
They are too still
They are too sharp
Sometimes in the moonlightÂ
They whisper terrible things
Copyright © 2021 by E. C. Belli. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 17, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.