Page 211 - Dark Matter Women Witnessing

when I was expecting you, when I first walked in the door and there you were—I had the

start that lovers have. My pulse would quicken as I climbed the stairs, just to know I'd be

seeing you! Just to know you were there. And of course you always were there, I could

count on you to be there even as I could count on that little rush at the sight of you. It

seemed too good to be true. With humans one of those assurances always seemed to

rule out the other.

My ears expect you, the language I learned that was all yours, the deep pleasure purr

when I touched you, stroked you, and you'd been waiting for my touch, the quieter

subtler purr as you approached, that anticipatory whirr as you headed towards me on

the couch, on the floor, on the bed. The focused, aggressive purr, while you waited for

me to open a can of food. And outdoors, your particular cries I struggled to make out

from among the tapestry of sounds, the rustling of the leaves and the squeaking of the

chipmunks and the rushing of the wind.

The series of little "mews" piping a greeting as you ran towards me from the woods, tail

high, body electric with energy. The yowl at the door, repeated ever more insistently

until someone came and let you in. The more primal yowl—conquest? pride? victory? —

as you pranced across the porch with a shrew in your mouth. The sounds that over the

years I learned to pull out from among the vast universe of sounds. Having strained to

hear you all these years my ears go on hearing you, and I have to train them in reverse

now, to release your beloved mews and yowls and purrs back to the universe, to return

them to the vastness from which they came. I have to unlearn your language.

Today I walked into my bedroom and gasped. There on my bed! The flounce, the flash

of white. As after a dream my rational mind restores the contours of the waking world.

My gray shorts in a ball, pockets turned out. . .