Poem a Week: Furniture / by Beth Winegarner

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I am sitting on the couch. The baby
is resting against my arm as though
I'm her personal BarcaLounger, and the kitty
is curled up on my knee. The baby
is taking lazy draws from her bottle while idly
clutching handfuls of the kitty's
ears and scruff, which the kitty tolerates because
it's the closest thing she may get
to petting for some hours. I think
she may even be purring. All three
of us are relaxed, in our own minds,
afternoon daze. I wonder what life is like
in their small, wordless heads,
what they wonder about my large noisiness
and long limbs. We're neither Plath's
fat gold watch nor Cassatt's beatitudes,
but somewhere in between,
furniture for one another. 

(2009)