to kit

You seemed so vulnerable

the first time I saw you.

Small, and almost hairless - mewling for your mom

and the night we took you home to stay

I worried

hoping the cold night air wouldn't be too much -

It wasn't.

Within a month you had taken control of the neighborhood pet life

every cat and dog under your sharp claws.

you stopped being 'kit' and became 'Cortez the Killer,'

dancing across our sidewalk in a vicious swirl of life and color.

There were days, and sometimes years, after our first weeks spent together

where I would see you hardly at all.

But I always knew you were there - still in control,

still the John Wayne of suburban-orchard frontier.

On hot summer days

when you deigned to descend from your wilderness throne

we would sit together. Me with my camera, you on my lap,

soft claws just shy of piercing my skin,

enjoying the heat.

And then, one day

I came home from college

and you had changed.

Softer, kinder, sweeter, more

old.

But beautiful, still, in your age.

I miss you now, Kit who was a boy,

I'm sorry I insisted you were a girl.

But I'm grateful you were there

while I grew up.

I'm grateful you grew up too.

I hope, that when I am old

people will be as grateful to have me around

as they were to have you.