The Night Emile's Mistress Turned into a Cat

She raised one arm above her head.
That was the start of it, a smooth
stretch of muscle, a lengthening of bone.
She was resting on exhausted sheets,
fingertips touching the wooden bedhead.
He heard the scrape of nails.

He lay beside her, drowsy with coming,
and drifted into dreams, her rump spooned
in his belly, firm against his soft sex.
He awoke to a narrow vacancy,
her furrow parched and empty.
The mattress ached.

She left a ghost of warmth
and three golden hairs on the pillow,
glowing like marmalade. Sometimes
he hears a serenade in the lane
beneath his window.

Queens sing when they disengage,
briefly, bitterly, then they lick, clean,
clean, forget.

M. A. Griffiths