He licks his paw at the mention of love,
remembering with the smell of fur another cat
with whom he'd traded looks and scratches, the line
of a scar still under his fur, now brick-
warmed but stinging as he rises with a stamp
to stretch and stalk the shadows now, before

dawn. The taste of envelopes gets old before
she has stopped handling the word love
like a bill in her mind, to be folded and stamped
and sent off like an orphan, a stray cat
who's followed you home and will get nothing but a brick
for its trouble. She cuts her finger, a small line

of blood, a heartbeat's pause. The line
held so dearly not a minute before
softens and grows moss, old brick
falling after years of witnessing love
within it. She cries. The cat
returns and sits, silent, on a stamp.

Her heart's approval, a red rubber stamp
that had decorated faces down a line
of years now rested wholely and solely with her cat.
She had dreamed of this through all the time before
when dancing came as easily as love
but held the vision away, behind the brick

of memory, clutched and bedwarming, a brick
from a hearthstone. She picks up the stamp
and licks it, puts it on her hand with love.
Two, three quick steps in a straight line
take her to the door, the mail slot where before
things only came in, and she goes out, smiling to the cat.

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