Another house

In the study I have never used,
eight bookshelves encircle a desk and litter box
for the cats I am feeding and sleeping beside.
The books belong to my professor, or her husband;
the titles delineate the two: The Vampire in Lore and Legend,
God Is a Verb, and some things less clear, like Bleak House.

A friend visiting here called the home sensible.
Every facet has a purpose: to foster life.
My friend said she loved the art, that she liked my professor
if only for the coloring of each room—periwinkle, mauve,
the brown of an old cat’s vomit, the lavender eggplant
and its gray dots of aphids.

A week ago was like a year,
entering the place as a sanctuary. “Nora only responds
to ‘Kitten,’ and she’s afraid of men,” I remember
being told. They said other things, too, but I had to learn
again how to operate the television and which
drawer stored the kitchen rags. Living is an act
of discovery: to find an outlet extension
is no different than first installing it.

Now my clothes
are tangled on the living room rug,
and I have slept in a married couple’s bed
as though they’d never used it. Rupert follows
me through the house. His cans of food
that display a white Persian have not changed;
my hands opening them are negligibly different.
In another week, I might not notice the Jewish
marriage license, might think I too had signed
my name on the 21st of Av, 5757.