Gray Cat

I used to dream of a gray cat
disappearing into the snow, fat wet 
flakes filling in its tracks. I wonder if
 
my father ever wanted to follow his 
father, vanish into the hills of 
West Virginia, almost heaven.

The dreams began in college, came in waves,
at first following close on Mom’s reports 
of my father’s dizzy spells, 

then preceding them like an aura —
sometimes false alarms.  
I can’t remember when the dreams

stopped — sometime after I got married,
before I got divorced, before he 
did die. 

I suppose there’s something 
to the timing. I began to steel myself.
And then, after his death, the onset:

my archives, my “informants” — 
my fruitless returning.

Sue D. Burton | Marry in Black
Contents | Mudlark No. 60 (2016)