Lament of a Second Owner

She turns, rubbing her side on the wall,
Perfect white socks aligned,
Posing carefully, to make me love her.
Always alert for my arrival:
Even creeping to where she sleeps
Results in a sudden leaping to attention,
Arranging her paws prettily
To ensure my continued devotion.

Her need-to-impress stings – I’m unaccustomed.
Tiger sits lazing in the garden sun,
Or lies sideways on the bed,
Stretching his paws to ask for ‘stroke’.
Even their “meow”s differ –
His a noisy ‘listen to me – hear my needs’
Her's a mere questioning squeak,
Asking permission to exist in my presence.

I gather her backwards against my chest,
Paws unceremoniously in the air,
She reaches her head to rub against my cheek,
Gazing up, with her big eyes open wide,
Wondering what I intend to do.
I hold her close, tears dripping onto soft fur,
For the abuse of innocence and beauty
That must have occurred to create such fear.

***

One of my cats is a rescue, and I don't know what her previous owners must have done to her, but she has obviously been abused in some way. We've had her for 2 1/2 years now, and she's slowly improving, but it's a been a long process. She does now lie spread out on the kitchen floor, and isn't quite so jumpy. She also doesn't seem to feel the same need to impress us all the time, but she's still much more 'flighty' than our other cats (one of whom is also a rescue, but was rescued as a kitten, so has had no previous owner).

The other cat mentioned in the poem, Tiger, was my gorgeous ginger tabby, who we had to have put down in 2005, due to oral cancer.