Remains of Barney

by Sean Sexton

There are none—he’s disappeared as he arrived

through the slender air, affixing to our lives 

as though we’d been acquainted a thousand years. 

Athlete in a tuxedo, the black and white coiffure

of that elegant body— lithe, Orcan, 

precocious as lightning.

Disappearance always his second art, practiced

upon four households, four cat food dishes set 

out for him, he managed to empty daily,

keeping a presence, drowsing settees

windowsills and the daybed, in schedules

of philandering unbeknownst to any of us.

He leaves confusion in remain of whose he was

or who were his, and a certain levity in our sense 

of lost visitation. He could circle the house entire 

and rush one door having just been put out the other, 

never failing to gain, when access was his goal

reinstatement in the household.

The algae-filled dish of rainwater is a disused

memento of his absence, four weeks passed.

We’re certain something’s happened, though we 

claimed nothing could catch him, not coyote 

nor traffic. In his late-night excursions from 

barn to back door. His soft, persistent, three AM

paw thuddings, the destruction of my sleep. Ever

present, except when he wasn’t, and ready any hour 

for fawning caress and endless draughts of attention. 

He imposed upon us like the seasons, 

better or worse. That I speak of him at all—

reveals my disbelief, and yet who would expel

Apollo from one’s life once he moved in.  Never drive

beauty from your door, should be the entreaty of 

any cultivation, for it will leave soon enough on its

own. And he is gone whence he came, vanished 

into the ether, and there’s a vacancy,

in the abiding hostelry of our hearts.