Princess Leia

Poetry

after Ross Gay

Don’t you remember the final buzz of the bee
as she fell because you swatted her
with your tiny paws?
You crushed her and I can’t
remember if you meant to.
I grabbed your leash harder
pulled you up onto my shoulder
and your claws began to scratch
new lines into my tattoos.
Yet I couldn’t be mad at you because
you were purring and I could feel
your little vocal cords vibrating
with joy because you love to
hold on to me with your feet-knives
that start to pull open my skin and let small pods
of crimson spill out into the world. And so I
carried you back to the house and I couldn’t even
care that you were hurting me because I love you
with all the crimson blood flowing in me and
being pulled out of me and how can I care when
you’ve lived seventeen years
seventeen years
and every morning when I wake up
I find you curled into yourself sleeping
and have to make sure that you’re just
sleeping and not dead because
you’re the first memory I have
with your hand-sized crescent shape in that box
alongside your siblings at the elementary school.
You were barely in this world and
yet when I think back
you’re the thing that I remember first
my gentle cat named after a princess
of the stars who led rebellion
and I just can’t be mad at you for
crushing that bee because you’ve always
been there for me with your
soft sweet meows and your paws that
would knead into my belly when I was sick
because you somehow knew I was hurting.
You always know when I’m hurt and you’re always there
and I’m not ready to lose you
is what I say to myself as I press
my forehead to the soft space between
your bobcat ears and kiss the misshapen
white diamonds printed on your nose and I
can’t help but think our souls were meant
to meet because you were born on the day
we celebrate the earth and you’re a reason
I love living on this earth. My sweet old
woman who loves the woodstove fire in
the hearth and sleeping against my
chest and making the world a place of
wonder and amazement all held in the
multicolored paws you used to snatch
a bee from the sky.