Warm under the blanket, the cat stretched and walked over to me. Jammed his head into my face. Stretched himself fully across my neck and chest. Lay down where it was hard to breathe. I moved him off, and under my armpit. Waited 'til he got up.
Cold downstairs with no wood fire yet. Took the magazine that I had lent Urs and she had returned. "You need to read it. "A story I had been trying to read before bed, but as always, I kept falling asleep a few paragraphs in.
The sun is out now-- the air that brilliant gold of autumn, leaf etched, against gray sky across the street. Storm grey. Then white clouds. Then gray again. There is a wind, still from last night when it blew open the front door. The door I can't open myself. Blown wide. The leaves are skittering like mice. Blown into pockets of gold and brown beneath the apple tree and beside the cemetery wall.
The story by T. Coraghessan Boyle. "You'll never look at ravens the same again." Sitting in the deep leather chair in the living room. The dehumidifier behind me is cranking like an old person's wheeze and cough. Reading. In the morning. Before email. Before breakfast or cats. Like playing hooky. The cat again. Rubbing against my stretched legs. Jumping on my lap which he never does. Bumping my hand. Must be food he wants. Or out. T. Coraghessan Boyle in my lap. Published on brown paper. A fold-in. Like parchment. Like sheepskin. Like the story of the newborn lambs on a sheep ranch. And the cat again. Now on the top of the wood box. Doing what only he can do. Perching. No need for gravity. Two front feet on the edge of the wood box, no more than a half inch wide. One back foot joining the two front feet, and the fourth? Somewhere. Not planted. No need for gravity.
The wind again. Blowing in and making me long for an instant fire in the old Round Oak stove.
Reading again. The ravens and the lambs.
The cats want to walk in the wind.
What morning should be.
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