Belly

to be nourished, be nourished, to nourish

I.

This week as I asked you — How do we live well as the world ends? — my condo association gave notice: “Cats must remain indoors.” How do you notify your cat, whose simple daily joy is to lay on warm porch boards, sprawled easily, belly open to the world in trust. Now, she sits at the windows and door with only questions. It has broken my heart and incited an anger more profound than the situation.

After all: Aren’t we just these soft bellied things, trying for simple in this sun-warmed world?

II.

Belly, I say, over and over, belly, belly, belly, poking her baby squish — she giggles and claps, lifting my shirt to find the canyon mystery of my belly button.

Belly. The word I no longer run from, with its luscious beginning, its bell a call to prayer now reverberating, low origin note, the umbilical that connects us all, this soft word ends so easily, as sweet as jelly seeps into oven fresh bread.

III.

I lift the corner of the blanket and her 9 lbs. of cat-body curls against my belly. A purr …