lay the fish on my stoop

I remember the long orange carp you once scooped

from the neighbor's pond, bounding beyond

her swung broom, across summer lawns

to lay the fish on my stoop. Thanks

for that. I'm not one to whom offerings

often get made. You let me feel

how Christ might when I kneel,

weeping in the dark

over the usual maladies: love and its lack.

Only in tears do I speak

directly to him and with such

conviction. And only once you grew frail

did you finally slacken into me,

dozing against my ribs like a child.

You gave up the predatory flinch

the snapped the necks of so many

birds and slow-moving rodents.

Now your once powerful jaw

is malformed by black malignancies.

It hurts to eat. So you surrender in the way

I pray for: Lord, before my own death,

let me learn from this animal's deep release 

into my arms. Let me cease to fear

the embrace that seeks to still me.

[Mary Karr {1955- }, 'For a Dying Tomcat Who's Relinquished His Former Hissing and Predatory Nature' from Sinners Welcome]