The Sunshine Cat

They did this to her, the men who knew her, the man / She loved, who loved her not enough, being selfish / And a coward, the husband who neither loved nor / Used her, but was a ruthless watcher, and the band / Of cynics she turned to, clinging to their chests where / New hair sprouted like great-winged moths, burrowing her / Face into their smells and their young lusts to forget, / To forget, oh, to forget... and, they said, each of / Them, I do not love, I cannot love, it is not / In my nature to love, but I can be kind to you... / They let her slide from pegs of sanity into / A bed made soft with tears and she lay there weeping, / For sleep had lost its use; I shall build walls with tears, / She said, walls to shut me in... Her husband shut her / In, every morning; locked her in a room of books / With a streak of sunshine lying near the door, like / A yellow cat, to keep her company, but soon, / Winter came and one day while locking her in, he / Noticed that the cat of sunshine was only a / Line, a hair-thin line, and in the evening when / He returned to take her out, she was a cold and / Half-dead woman, now of no use at all to men.