the mat

that green mat  once lay in our doorway
where we stamped away snow and mud
coming and going, leaving and returning
welcoming friends and shooing soliciters
where I had once shared many kisses with secret visitors

it had been washed, and beaten, and flapped in the wind
and my mother 'tsk'ed at the resilience of its stains
until one day, finally,
it was relegated to the sunny back porch
merely functional and rarely seen by visitors
fraying at the edges and fading in the sun

today an old cat found himself upon it,
stretched out as though sunbathing
but his fur was matted and gnarled,
his breathing as ragged as the mat upon which he lounged
I saw him by chance; I was doing chores,
shaking out a newer mat over the lawn unnecessarily, avoiding mopping
and there the cat was, barely noticing me, too busy wheezing.

I accompanied him, watched him die with curiousity
like he was a crystal ball into my own future
and as he heaved breaths and spasmed desperately,
I saw myself, as worn as he and the mat, doing the same.
I cried a little when he died, when his tense body went limp
as though it had never been living

but I had to say, there were worse ways to go out
than laying stretched out in the sun with someone at your side to remember you
I only hoped that when I died, it would be on my back with my face to the sky
the mat, musty as it was, probably smelled awful.

I buried the cat with the help of a friend
the man I'd once secretly embraced upon that mat.
and together we mourned the cat, threw dust upon it
whimpered prayers for a pleasant afterlife
and left it to be consumed by worms,
arms 'round one another's shoulders staggering drunkenly with grief
at its demise and the way our touch was no longer tryst
but a mere attempt at touching life

and with all trace of the cat cleared away
the mat remained on the back doorstep
faded by the sun, worn by the weather, and dirtied
but a monument of these things always.