Cat In an Empty Apartmnet

To die -- but one just doesn't do that to a cat.
Because what's it to do? a cat
in an empty apartmnet.
Climbing the walls.
Massaging itself through the furniture.
As if nothing were changed here
but something rearranged.
Nothing moved
but something displaced.
And in the evening the lamp no longer lights.

Footsteps sound on the stair,
but not those.
The hand that fills the little bowl with fish,
not the hand that used to.

Something here doesn't begin
at its usual time.
Something doesn't happen
as it ought to.
Someone was here, and was,
then abrubtly disappeared
and is persistently missing.

All the closets have been peeked-in.
The shelving trotted-across.
The rug shimmied-under and inspected.
Even the house-rule broken
and the papers scattered.
What else is there to do--?
Wait, and sleep.

Just wait till he gets home.
Just let him show his face around here.
He has a thing or two to learn;
he can't treat cat like htat.
One will walk in that direction
as if one preferred not to,
gradually,
on highly-offended paws.
And no hopping up, no mewing. Not at the beginning.

-- Wislawa Szymborska