An Old Poet Thinks About…Cats

On one of the rare occasions
twenty years ago or so
when I came pretty close to 
Pulling It Off,

I lay upon
the bathroom floor surrounded by
concerned cats and pulled myself 
together even as I regretted my weakness,

telling myself I was doing It 
for others, staying here
for the fear of leaving
others to live in the wake of It

and how It would ruin their lives to lose me
that way and have all they knew of me
erased by the vision of me ending up
cold, bled out upon the ancestral tiles,

ringed by the only beings
who stayed with me
through the dimming
and the light going out at last.  

Twenty years or so later
I question that choice, uncertain
that living on past that day didn’t ruin
more lives than Pulling It Off would have,

thinking of the saddened people who’ve met me since then
and the ones who were there who’ve endured so much more,
and while I’m better now to some degree
and wouldn’t do more than think now and then

about trying once again to Pull It Off
and still on occasion
regretting my weakness at the time,
I am glad there are cats around me here, just in case.