I still do, though it's been years.

Day 5: "Something Round": sparkly eyeball

Rocky was a regular guy, a loyal friend.

The trouble was he was only a cat.

Let's practice, he'd say, and he'd pounce

On his shadow on the wall.

I have to admit, I didn't learn a thing.

I often sat watching him sleep.

If the birds tried to have a bit of fun in the yard,

He opened one eye.

I even commended him for his good behavior.

He was black except for the white gloves he wore.

He played the piano in the parlor

By walking over its keys back and forth.

With exquisite tact he chewed my ear

If I wouldn't get up from my chair.

Then one day he vanished. I called.

I poked in the bushes.

I walked far into the woods.

The mornings were the hardest. I'd put out

A saucer of milk at the back door.

Peekaboo, a bird called out. She knew.

At one time we had ten farmhands working for us.

I'd make a megaphone with my hands and call.

I still do, though it's been years.

Rocky, I cry!

And now the bird is silent too.

[Charles Simic, {1938- } 'Little Unwritten Book', in Sixty Poems]