[Jean L. Kreiling]

This is terrific--both plain-speaking and creative, and engaging right through to the last word. The cliches are perfect for the voice of this speaker, but there are original moments too--like preferring death to another catheter.

I wonder if L8 could begin with something sharper than "unheard-of"--maybe something indicating how big the nightmares are despite the "diminished" brain. And I think L6 needs a comma after "washed."

jlk

[John Whitworth]

I very much like this poem. It is my favourite this far. But then it's an old person's poem, isn't it?

[Golias]

I know three women poets who could have written this, but Margaret Widdemer is dead and one of the other two just made a comment in praise of the sonnet, so it must be the third, the one who has children.

[Bruce McBirney]

My favorite so far--poignant, smart, technically strong, and with some fine description (especially the passage in lines 5-7: "...their crepey skin/ like washed unironed taffeta, their veins/ a railway map of Europe...). As someone else mentioned, the double meaning of "crepey" (sounding close to "creepy") is a nice touch.

Great work.

[Michael Cantor]

Hurray! Found one I can like without reservations. The voice is simultaneously old and contemporary and consistent throughout, riffs like L9-L12 are excellent, and the final line's a killer. This one's a keeper. Best by a mile so far.

[Eileen Cleary]

I love this poem! I think bean refers to head and the expression is apt for the N.'s voice.The sentiment and tone are spot on.This is my favorite so far.

The unironed taffeta and other images are very powerful as is the ending.

[Spindleshanks]

Finally a sonnet that walks the walk and talks the talk.
Given the evident skill of the author, I see the belfry and beans cliches as carefully and sardonically chosen, along the lines of "my kids think I'm yadda yadda; well yadda yadda to them". That's a plus in my view.

I find L10 difficult metrically, with the "a" wanting to be stressed, though L11 almost compensates with the lift of its opening trochee.

While I agree that it's the best so far, I find the close vaguely unsatisfying and unsurprising. I expected more by then.

The best so far, but still waiting.

[Siham Karami]

Definitely my favorite so far too. It has great flow from beginning to end, the use of "cliché" expressions is not itself cliché'd, sounding in character and adding that sense to it. I thought the end settled itself in nicely.

[L.M. Price]

I really like this one also. Neither the bats in the belfry nor not knowing beans bother me. The second fits the tone, and the first is a sly dig at the common phrase.
The thing that bugs me is the use of 'before' in the second half. It seems to me that what N means is: when you are old and have all these ailments, you'll be happy to have a cat and will take back what you've said about me having too many. But instead, she (I agree with DG - I can't picture this as anyone other than an elderly woman) says, 'Before these things happen…' Or: while you are still young and don't have anything wrong with you, you will be happy for a cat to warm your lap. Which doesn't fit.
But that doesn't stop me from enjoying the poem immensely anyways.

[Ann Drysdale]

Out with the bats - there are better ways - caveats, and even the ever-useful "that's" - unless they're brought in in a cleverer way so they don't look so opportunistic. In themselves they are a consonant away from the cats the narrator is beginning to "hoard" - a useful notion but a bit too easy to rhyme on.

As to their not knowing beans, it suggests to me a voice from an earlier generation fastidiously avoiding saying that they "don't know shit", which most younger Americans of my aquaintance say without a second thought. I took it as a euphemism rather than a cliché.

At first I fretted about the title. One doesn't "hoard" cats - unless of course one is the archetypal old cat-woman, to whom the individual cats have blurred into one. You know, the old... bat ... who shuffles about covered in hairs, hers and theirs. And this is where this sonnet has brought me; self-disgust and fear. Hoarder is right; it starts to draw the picture without telegraphing the subject.

No, it's not a cat-poem. It's far more than that. I'd like to see it brought out of the family context and into that of the the wider world. Changing the first word from "my" to "the" would alter the emphasis just enough.

A worthwhile poem - all fur and no fluff.