Perhaps the year was 1999,
the season fall, a Sunday afternoon.
While window-shopping with a friend of mine,
our focus was enticed by a balloon
affixed above a cage the Shelter set
upon the sidewalk, graced with pretty strays.
A yellow kitten drew my friend. They met
and formed a little family that day.

Her coat was tawny but her sex female.
She only moved inside two years ago.
She prowled or purred, and Rosie didn’t fail
until last month, when cancer made us know
her span was nearly at its end. That’s why
today my friend will help her Rosie die.