Poetry Friday, "Cat" by Brautigan

Cat

We lay in that bed one sunny evening after making love
and decided to name our first girl Cat, we were going
to name her Cat, but now we have departed forever from our
love-making, and we will not have a little girl, nor any
children at all, and I am doomed to become the poet
in your dreams who falls continually like the evening rain.

It's been a long time since I lay in a bed with a lover talking about what we would name our children--children we were sure we would have, sure we would name. It makes me feel like an old bitter lady to say so.

I am not an old bitter lady. I am a young lady full of life and joy who is a little sad today, after a rough week with some mean people and an Idiot Wind who really . . .how can I put this delicately? Sucks balls. And this ball-sucking Idiot Wind has a good bit of control over my life and likes to suck the joy right out of it.

So, in short--I want to do my work. I want to have the time to appreciate my incredible students and my tantalizing ideas and my beautiful life.

I want to be besotted with it all. Why is that deemed so dangerous?