You can see right off

he’s not the kind of cat

meant for windows

yet there he sits in perfect

stillness,

as if so much time spent behind glass

has siphoned all the motion

out of his life.

And it seems as if his rain-smeared

reflection blurs a little more

than it did just last week

when morning crowds rushed by.

There are more important losses

to be sad about—

bombs leveling cities,

children starved inside their skins,

pain that courses through the body

and stops the heart.

Every moment is full of lists

too long to memorize

but here, on this day, grant me

this small grief

for a living thing trapped too long.