Dark thing in the night

by Louise Carson

Black cloth cat on a small black table against a yellow wall

pleases me

especially because

above it floats a translucent painting – white-framed, white-matted –

of a glass bowl in which one glowing peach – misshapen, over-ripe – dissolves.

The velvet cat with golden button eyes disturbs her.

Nightly, she cries out on each trip to the bathroom,

and every morning I discover the cat

tipped over,

its goofy whiskers, folk-art eyes, face down.

She hasn’t noticed the peach.

I keep replacing the cat.