Iris Lennox

Tag: Cats

  • Triptych: Coming and Going


    Curiosity
    by Iris Lennox

    My little white cat stands at every doorway
    before she enters.
    Perhaps it is fear
    but I think it’s manners,
    and questions that steady her
    upon the threshold.

    Is there anything here
    worth the risk
    it takes to
    leave the safety of the hallway,
    and what will I miss if I do?

    No noise behind her,
    but I sit typing at my desk
    while she
    considers,
    a tiny pink nose weighing her
    options—

    I say hello,
    which changes nothing,
    and now I weigh
    my kindness against her indifference
    as a thread moves across the floor,
    the air purifier
    beckoning it closer.

    My little white cat enters
    not to see me
    but to inspect the thread
    and to
    maybe
    prove the room deserves her
    presence.

    Patience
    by Iris Lennox

    Moose Tracks are easier to eat in a bowl,
    but not nearly as engaging
    as racing to the drips
    spilling over the sides
    of my cone
    and knowing there are
    peanut butter cups gathering
    in the middle.

    Why do the sweetest parts
    hide in the center?

    No one eats M&Ms for the color,
    and you’d embarrass yourself
    if you dared say,
    “the peel is better than the orange.”

    We all know
    some things ask to be opened—
    the banana from the stem,
    the shells at the baseball game,
    the foil around warm chocolate
    you forgot was in your pocket.

    At least,
    for me,
    for today,
    for this moment,

    all I need to do
    is taste sweetness
    with the patience of a toddler,
    unaware of the nature
    of stickiness,

    and save the middle
    for later.

    Father
    by Iris Lennox

    He left before his first Father’s Day
    and mine.

    But at least he left in style,
    with my mother’s car,
    all her cash,
    and glasses
    wrapped in a towel
    because they were
    worth keeping.

    He worked in a bar
    and, from what I hear,
    he lived like he did.

    At least that’s what strangers told me,
    each one carrying
    another adventure.

    Someone up north.
    Another on the west coast.
    Then the east
    before he landed
    in Las Vegas.

    The land of dreams
    won
    and lost
    all in the same night.

    Sounds about right.

    I met my father
    for the first time
    and the last
    one month before he died,

    and every Father’s Day
    I try
    not to care.

    Written in response to three words: curiosity, patience, father.

  • Four and a Half Minutes

    Iris Lennox Poem
    The morning sun draws itself in lines
    across my hand as I lift the shades.
    Three succulents on the sill 
    squint and awaken.

    I fill the kettle with filtered water,
    set it on the stove,
    and wait as heat gathers, quietly
    like the introduction of a song
    before the singing begins.

    I scoop the grounds into the press—
    piñon nut coffee from New Mexico,
    dark, resinous, faintly sweet,
    holding desert sun in its edges.

    The water stirs before it speaks.
    I watch the surface tremble,
    then rise into a low, certain boil.

    At the window, my black cat claims his post.
    A squirrel meets him there,
    small hands braced against the glass.
    They study each other
    as if to ask, "Oh, just you? Again?"

    In the living room, my white cat stretches long
    across the rug,
    pressing herself into the day.
    A small felt cat rests beside her—
    a careful replica,
    stitched into stillness.

    The kettle calls me back.
    I pour.

    Water meets grounds,
    and the air deepens—
    coffee blooms, expands,
    releases what it has carried.

    I stir once, twice,
    set the lid,
    and press the timer:
    four and a half minutes.

    I lean into the counter
    where the sun has already shifted.

    Steam lifts from the press,
    moves through the room
    beckoning even the walls to wake.

    The squirrel disappears.
    My black cat stays,
    newly enthralled by a robin hopping through grass.

    My white cat settles beside her smaller self.
    They rest in the same light,
    one breathing, one not.

    The timer sounds.
    I press the plunger down, slow, steady,
    feel the quiet resistance
    give way—
    a practice in patience
    amid anticipation.

    I pour the coffee.
    I lift the cup.
    I take the first sip.

    Another morning where
    God makes morning
    and succulents
    and sunlight
    and cats,

    and I, for my part, manage the coffee.

    —Iris Lennox