Cats with Eating Disorders?

My dear friend SLG turned me on to the following poem.

Upon reading it, I knew I wanted to share it with the Breaking the Mirror community, so I contacted the author, Alice N. Persons. She replied immediately and gave me permission to reprint the piece in its entirety here.

I’ve added two pictures below – one of Persons and one of the cat about whom she writes. (Aren’t they both lovely?)

If you’d like to see more of Persons’ writing (or, better yet, purchase one of her books), please head to Moon Pie Press.

(Incidentally, this piece is from Persons’ poetry chapbook NEVER SAY NEVER. Garrison Keillor read the poem on his NPR program “The Writer’s Almanac.”)

To My Cat With An Eating Disorder

You were thrown out of a moving vehicle
on a dirt road
in chilly winter downeast Maine,
little fur scrap, and I hope you don’t
carry that memory with you,
but the hunger, the deep fear
that you’ll never see food again
is still there five years later
when you are huge and sleek,
a sumo Buddha of a cat.

I’ve seen you, after a big meal,
heave yourself from a sound sleep,
pad into the kitchen, launch your bulk
onto the counter, and check the food supply,
then crouch there chewing and chewing,
green eyes empty, concentrating
on your burden, your compulsion,
doggedly eating, whether you want to or not.

There are stories about Holocaust or
Depression survivors whose refrigerators
and pantries are always full, just in case,
how some of them still wake in the night
and check their abundant supplies,
run their hands over the packages,
or eat without hunger, just because they can.

Cat, I stand in the dark kitchen
stroking your broad back,
wishing I could banish the fears
of one small, common creature,
those bad dreams that awaken you,
that hollow place in your memory
which can never be filled.

Writer Alice N. Persons has published 42 poetry books, including three anthologies. Her works can be purchased at www.moonpiepress.com.