Our cat died after a long feline life buried deep enough
we thought, but nothing stays buried in rain-soaked soil.

How we underestimate survival, all those complications
between birth and death, or what we'll do for food.

She was disinterred, a possum probably,
her corpse dragged into the moonlight
visible over my coffee cup at 1:00AM,
pale mound at the beginning of the woods,
a cloud of fireflies investigating.

By daybreak she was gone. Look up.
The vultures dried their wings and stuck around.