Old calico with gummy kidneys and knotted joints,
fur no longer smoothable, like a carpet that someone
spilled paint on, never the same. The vet tech inserted

the port in one leg, and she meowed her last protest.
I thought of my mother, who as she aged closer
and closer to her final, feeble 93, said, “We treat

our old dogs and cats better than we treat ourselves
at the end.” I held Madeline, named wittily, I thought,
given a cat’s propensity for sleep, for Keats’s young woman

who dreams of her lover. When the tech started the pink drip,
Miss M looked in my eyes, knowing; I like to think
it was a look of thanks. The tech asked if I wanted time

alone with her, but I didn’t want to feel her warmth
ebb away; instead, I imagined her waking somewhere,
running off with her young and supple tom.

– Eric Weil

Author’s Note: “Keats’s young woman” is the protagonist of “The Eve of St. Agnes,” which I recommend reading. My wife says we named Madeline after the little girl in Ludwig Bemelman’s children’s books, which I also recommend. I couldn’t figure out a way to get both Keats and Bemelman into the poem and keep the ending, which I like.