Stinky Senior

Ok, so I really like my 4 cats. I had a huge mental block regarding writing about them, cause poetry about cats seems one step away from wearing clothes featuring cats or starting a cat figurine collection. That's somewhere I don't intend to go. I did NOT intend to write the following poem, circumstances were beyond my control:

Old Lady Munchy

Munch has farted
Just a little
“pfft” noise as she
stood up from the futon
we share.

She runs her head
into me
wanting my love
as her stink,
a mix of rotten bacon and athlete’s foot,
envelopes the room

This morning I found
another spot of vomit
little chunks of
Science Diet, Sensitive Stomach brand
cat food, floating
like little islands,
in a pond of green bile.

I clean up her mess
and she comes over
to apologize
I pet her crown
trying to take her
pain into me.

I wish for a cure
some pussycat pepto
to make her feel
better
an elixir
to make her
young again.

My Munchy, who
meows like an enraged Bette Davis.

Who always sounds
like she is yelling for
more scotch and
a fresh pack of camel lights

Munchy, who sat
quiet, under my feet
in the cab of my GMC Sonoma
on our cold, November
journey from Chicago
to Hollywood, while
her sister rang choruses of
“Let Me OWT!!” to the plains,
mountains, deserts and ocean.

My Munchy who has
warmed chairs for me,
tripped me on
my midnight trips to
the toilet &
has
listened to me cry
curling up on my belly to
soothe me, leaving
half her soft coat to remind
me to be ok.

The ER Vet told us,
last March 23rd at 1:30 a.m.,
nothing was specifically wrong
“cats this age just
tend to have problems”
sometimes fatal
in Munchy’s case
“sometimes just painful”
Then the vet relieved us of $500.

My Old Lady Munchy is now -
IBS, special food and funny noises
followed by
not so funny smells.

My Munchy
is only gonna get
more expensive
from now on.

But I’ll be as
patient with her,
as she has been with me.