Reassurance by Martha Christina

My old cat yowls
loud and long
into the dark.

My sympathetic vet
explains: She wakes
disoriented, uncertain
of where she is, where
you are. You can let her
know, reassure her.

In those first months
when I was learning
my new identity: widow,
half-asleep I sometimes
felt my husband’s weight
against my back. Waking
fully, I’d find this same cat
curled in that space, as if
she could reassure me.



Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.