We have been having beautiful, spectacular sunsets this week. Today's was especially lovely--I was walking underneath the viaduct to the club when I saw, over the water, the most glorious clouds, set ablaze with oranges and reds and pinks and periwinkles. The water below the clouds was selfish with the light, but did reflect some of the glow back upwards.

The light that was thrown on the city at that moment was marvelously orange-pink, softening the corners of everything and making even the concrete look like it had a former life as granite.

You don't get that every day here. Most days, the fog comes up before sunset and the sun rolls away quietly; the most visual display it puts on is a brief pinking of the mist and then a silent twilight before the blackness descends upon us. It's almost as if the sky is attempting to apologize for getting dark so early these days.

And it's been cold. Oh, it's been cold. cold enough in the morning to steal my breath and make me wish I had a warmer scarf, to delay me running out the door to catch the bus until the very very last minute, cold enough that all of my radiators are now in service and I'm still not as warm as I'd like to be. Cold enough that I wake and the cats are pressed against me for warmth, cold enough that I touch their fur and it's chilly. But they're nice to wake up to. I roll over and headbump Kallisti, bury my nose in his fur and sniff the marvelous dusty smell of him.

Kallisti is heading into feline middle age, a burden that sits lightly on his shoulders. I think of it sometimes when he and I are cuddling. He is almost nine years old, I think. He's been with me for six years. I am the only human he has ever trusted, the only human he loves. In a way, he's much more my cat than the other two; they came to me relatively blank slates. He, on the other hand, picked me out of a crowd and told me with a glance (and a loud yowl) that *his* human was here and if I'd expedite him coming home with me, he'd be terribly appreciative.

No stranger ever believes that he's easily the most affectionate of the three. He claims my lap when I am sitting and tells me when it's time to go to bed. He butts his head against me and demands to be picked up so he can tell me about his day when i come home from work.

It's strange to think of him getting older. Stranger still to think of him one day being gone. What will I do without a black cat with soft, soft fur to snuggle his head under my chin and purr loudly?

They tell you, when you get a cat, to expect twelve to fifteen years of responsibility, of caring fiercely for this other life you are responsible for.

Fifteen years will not be enough. There is no such thing as "enough".

Jericho

my lover harbored truth
like a fleabitten soldier
in her hands and eyes; shocked,
I stood still and felt wounds
open and shut like mouths
or moth wings within me. I shivered.
There was something about her,
her scent or the way she moved
her hand against her hip
that flitted past reason and touched
something darker, something old
and heavy and finally, finally hungry
in my brain, the drives older than the scent
of smoke or the curve of gazelle, running
the movement of hand on skin
mouth on breast

and still shocked I reached
out and touched--something--
mind, emotions, something in her
also old and hungry and we went
together sitting in the sodium light
of a modern parking lot
sharing everything, all the secrets
flowing out in a gush and I knew
that they were birth waters
worth all this waiting.

that was our story. there's more--
setting, circumstances, both tragic
and more than a smidge amusing--
but the story is this, always this:
two women, touching, whispers in a close room,
the ache as the hindbrain awakes
and demands its ancient tribute.
This, too, left marks
curled around my still-beating heart.

I treasure them.
They are my hard-won badges
medals of a war won permanently
when her voice was the dulcet siren of Jericho
and all my protections crumbled before
her truth, carried to me
from a place like very far away.

--10.17.00

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