Jan Haag taught journalism, English and creative writing at Sacramento City College for more than three decades before her 2021 retirement. A former magazine editor, she is the author of Companion Spirit, a collection of poems about her husband’s death published by Amherst Writers & Artists Press. She leads in-person writing groups in Sacramento, as well as virtual ones, in which the topic of grief and loss often arises. Read more of her beautiful writing here.

(for Popoki)

There was rain in the night
just before dawn when I tiptoed
into the kitchen to peek at her
sleeping in the cardboard box
she had chosen near the back door.

I had lined it with towels easily
laundered, now that accidents often
happened, and there she lay,
a perfect kitty spiral, her tail
hugging the circumference of her
skinny self, not awakening as usual
when she heard my footsteps.

I have known for a good year that
two of the important females in my life
were on their way into mystery—
my mother, a too-thin version of herself,
who went in December, and Poki,
who has been losing weight
but eating like a horse.

For some time I had a feeling about
what was ailing her, but having always
been the cat-turned-tiger at the vet’s,
I was reluctant to subject them or her
to her outrage at such indignities
as being poked and prodded
in places no cat wants to be.

For years a now-retired veterinarian
had treated Poki at home, this easygoing
cat who never failed to use the litter box
properly, which she recently started
overshooting and leaking wherever she sat—
a sign I recognized.

I’ve done this a lot—
seen the two- and four-footed beloveds
to their ends—but I never want to
make the call. Though I do.

After the rain washed the sky clean
and the sun emerged, I let Poki out
to stroll the driveway for a last look
around her queendom. She sat and
closed her leaky eyes, basking as she
has done for sixteen years, as my
own filled, too, both of us
soaking up so much spring,

Then I tucked her unprotesting self
into the soft carrier and took her to a kind
veterinarian born and raised on Maui
who instantly understood—Popoki,
the Hawaiian word for cat—

and together we sent her off
with our aloha and the lyrics
by a Hawaiian queen in our heads:

One fond embrace
A ho’i a’e au
Until we meet again.