Fidel

We named the cat Fidel  until there were no more scratches at the door after the bars closed

and the stereo’s tone arm played the edge of the red Columbia label.

The noise it made, the bald needle bouncing off the spinning circle of company brand and song titles  was the sound we heard when neither of us spoke.

The unending clicks  and whispering scrapes,  the scratch at the door, a scraping sweep of claws  and a low rumbling growl.
We awoke in absence of one thing, the familiar violation of the silence  which never quite happened.

We go tout of bed and put on our pajamas , walked around the apartment, poked the bushes and circled the trees as if thinking Fidel would surrender,  paws raised, and stop his nocturnal adventure so some of us may sleep in fields of odorless amnesia.