Envelope in the Pigeonhole

This evening
when I return to the hotel
I see in my pigeonhole
Angela’s writing
on a yellow envelope.

What excuse
will she have for not writing?
Too busy, perhaps,
stirring cauldrons of soup
while the cats dash about
licking her calves.

Or don’t the cats know enough
to lick at her calves?
Would that I were the cats
and the cats were taller.

© 2010 Donal Mahoney

first appeared in
The South Carolina Review
December, 1971 Vol. 4, No.1