petrichor so dry it smacks of mineral residue. not a sprinkling twinkling of rainfall on grass. plopping smacks of fat wet against dry earth and stone. tiny paw prints to break my heart. a hush of distance in the downpour: were it daytime one might see to where the clouds are yet to break, or done broken. the taste of salt, origins of metal. a repeated, plaintive “merrrlow” asks why we’re not walking in the wet. the desert moistened packs dense and heavy, piles on soles like platforms. instead we play inside, and she’s perfectly kitten rough romping, leaping and rolling. Deets lately playfully pursues this toy she’s always had: a gift from Grandy on the day of adoption. a toy that initially terrified baby Deetsy, in fact, a problem long since conquered. bigger, still kitten makes jokes these days, and friends. her feline visitor appears irregularly, landing not farther than a yard away to a mutual, quiet, friendly curiosity only cats can explain. I don’t know the sex of the other, which means until Deets is spayed I appreciate them keeping distance. she gives her little quizzical trills, not dissimilar to when she asks why we can’t play outside, and the other cat responds by silent approach, closing the small gap so they might sniff at each other. Lindsay told me she read that cats don’t meow in the wild, having many other, more efficient ways of communicating. house cats developed this talent specifically for their idiot human companions. what romance! tomorrow Deets will insist on her walk in the sticky desert. she will spend the evening afterwards tracking mud around our casita, then gnawing at her cakey paws, leaving dust on everything. I won’t mind one bit.

when we came home from Alaska the nighttime was cold and quiet. my home too was quiet. after she left, the cat meowed more. she left the blankets folded on her bed, the one that had been mine for years in a Prius, taking up a third of the floor space where it stayed for many more days. a week in Alaska like a foreign country: blessed the landscape, thorough the surreality. tears were shed for the glory of a pure, exquisite earth. tears were shed of laughter. each day and night stretched long, every one a new blur of beauty, of sharing. how rampant my remembrance, in the soft nighttime silence of afterward.