My boyfriend talked to our cat each morning.

It used to drive me nuts. 

I would be at my desk working

a mess of heliographs 

untangling words to make sense

then I would hear baby talk across the room

my concentration snapped and so would I

"Can't you talk somewhere else?"

Now the cat is dead

and my boyfriend has no one to talk to

It is lonely to live with me

I have been told

Not just by him

But other men

And my children I suspect

Also sense the fruitlessness

of speech when mommy

has donned her writer's mask.

It is a chore to live with me, 

I guess