Nervous. Hair between lips, nails between teeth.
Those first steps are tentative. We are guarded
like animals, circling in our cages, assessing
prey and predators, friends and foes, and over
months of sharing the waterhole and baring our
stripes and spots, we decide we are both cats.
They walk out of your life more quickly than they walk in.
We've rehearsed. The hunts, the dreams, the confinement,
but there's nothing like the real thing.
Breathing against ribs heavy with sadness.
Tending to thorny paws on my own.
It's not the end, but it's not the beginning,
and the ripples have dissipated
and the water is still here at home.
