Cinder Cats

(based on an idea by Anna Reynaud)

Here’s how you can tell
when winter is about to begin;

you think it’s going to be
the smoke pouring from

the chimneys that gives it away
but, that isn’t usually the first indication.

The first sign you’ll get
is birds, hopefully blue,

rising up in great columns
from those chimneys,

Swirling at first, disoriented
but, assembling finally

into clouds
of blue smoke

headed South.
That’s when Cinder Cats

can move in.
Not right away, understand.

Cinder Cats are a process,
they don’t just appear.

Snap your fingers, like that.
They have to gather, gradually

as more and more logs burn
orange in your fireplace.

Ashes, gray, have to drop for months
through the grating

to your floor.
Anyway that’s, generally,

but not always,
how Cinder Cats are born.

***

Now, people often miss
the similarities

and the differences
between smoke and love.

Both are mysterious,
neither lend themselves

easily to the obvious
or the oblivious

or to those obviously
oblivious to what they’re made of.

If people get them wrong
I don’t blame them.

Smoke is fleeting
and love is permanent.

I may have even gotten
that backwards

which only serves to further
illustrate my point.

***
So, Cinder Cats are gray
And, they occur

in one of two ways.
Either, as we discussed,

they form slowly
in the bottom of your fireplace

or they appear in an instant
in the mind of your lover

as she tells you the story
of Cinder Cats.

Curled in you [sic] lap, forever,
like love,

about to vanish
like smoke,

or vice versa,
like a Cinder Cat.

–January 24, 2018