--- L A U R A   H O P E -G I L L

Having dreamt it, I woke. The cat
wanted out and talked about it. She's pushy,
and, like him, oddly volatile at times.

Awake, I walked the house
as though death had walked the house,
his death, distant, priest-led, wholly

true in the truth of dreams, that part of me
he lives in possibly dying away, excising
itself out like the mountains
erasing all those stars.

People raised their arms and cheered him on a gurney.
The moon flooded the living room,
as the cat hesitated at the cold door.