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They were smart to put a storefront humane shelter on the street I walked.
I was new in town.
Everybody else was used to those cats in cages in the windows.
They kept on walking,
trained not to glance over,
lest they lie awake at night thinking about that long-haired tabby waiting waiting waiting.
But I hadn't been trained.
I tried not to look.
I have never been able to go to a humane shelter.
But now they had brought one to me.
I'd buried my last cat two years before.
I had only dogs now.
Dogs that didn't get into howling, spitting fights in the middle of the night.
Dogs that didn't spray or leave chunks of frothy hair ball on the carpet exactly where I
place my feet in the morning.
I had buried my last cat.
I was a dog person now.
But they'd put a storefront humane shelter on the street I walked every day.
And I was new in town.
I lasted two months.
Then I went inside,
swearing I'd get only one,
and only a girl,
and no more.
Working hard to keep my heart together.
Cages, cages, eyes.
They can't be too sad.
Cats sleep 80 percent of the time.
They are all right,
could be worse.
Don't look at that dog over there.
The one storefront dog in the cage.
You will break apart.
Not made for shelters.
Ashamed of it.
But not made for shelters.
At first I thought,
I'll choose this one,
this nervous one.
I'll choose this one,
this old battered one.
I'll choose this one,
this bright one.
Cages, cages, eyes.
And then last cage,
last cage,
there you were, Boris.
With your gray sister.
And you stood up and stretched and purred and promised, promised you would be good if
I took her, too,
because she had kept you alive all those days and days and days.
Three months in a cage,
Boris, with your sister,
living in the moment with only your memories of leaves and rooftops and warm brown mice.
I promise, you said,
and I believed you,
and I took home two cats-one more than I wanted, and a boy at that-
but you promised,
and I knew.
Copyright © 2005 by Cynthia Rylant
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