“I’ll have a drink, you take a bite,”
I say to the cat, and she
Answers with a quick
Lash of her furry tail.
“And let those that weep be as though
They wept not—puss, was it St. Peter who said that?”
No answer. Instead she gnaws silently,
Steadily at her piece of fish.
Not a word from the dead, which is strange:
Is it so hard to dig a tunnel out from death?
She purrs and drops her head,
Not once lowering her watchful gaze.
Translated by Stephanie Sandler