CATS HAVE NINE LIVES, THEY SAY. Cats come back nine times, and our lives follow a strict pattern. Three to stray, three to play, and three to stay. And then, they say, it’s over. No eternity for Cats, oh, no, but nine lives should be eternity enough for something small, and soft, and swift. Nine lives should satisfy our souls. The people who say that don’t account for the ones we love, the ones who walk more slowly, the ones whose hands are soft but whose skin is as rough as a paw-pad, the ones who tower over the world. We are their hearts gone running wild through the places they cannot see,
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