A Bit and Another Bit of Me

I knew you'd leave -
(they always do)
so you'd think that after your 16
and 20 years respectively 
I'd have come to terms
with the concept of goodbyes.

Not I; like a babe I bawled 
when not one,
but the two of you decided to abscond 
in the space of a month. 

That was a couple of years back
and now you might assume
someone of my age has better
things to do than fret about
the absence of two 
undeniably loveable, 
yet scrawny aged cats,

but I still sometimes glimpse 
one or the other of you
mincing and strutting your stuff,
fleeting the corner of my vision,
sleeping on top of the telly,
or slinking into the shadows as I pass.

Blurring into this photo
I find it hard to believe you're gone;
perhaps you never went -
you are not outside side by side
under the little mounds of earth
and weeds I like to call a lawn...

A bit and another bit of me
is in that dirt, instead - the bits that hurt,
and you are here, parts of me now -
the parts you touched with feather fur
and the brush-kiss scrub of mothering tongues.
You are gold eyes smiling in my memory 
and the purring I imagine stirring 
beneath contentment beating in my heart.