[Marion Shore]

THE HOARDER

My children think I have too many cats.
I don't agree, but I know what it means:
they think I'm getting senile, breeding bats
in this old belfry. Children don’t know beans.
Wait till they're old and see their crepey skin
like washed unironed taffeta, their veins
a railway map of Europe, while they spin
unheard-of nightmares in diminished brains.
Before your body is a nuisance more
than a delight, before you'd welcome death
sooner than one more catheter, before
June weather chills you with December's breath
and your unlovely skin needs warmer furs,
my dears, you'll love what sits on you and purrs.


We are drawn in at once by the homey, plain-talking voice of the narrator, as she* declares "my children think I have too many cats." She goes on to describe their perception of her as turning into the cliché of the crazy cat lady – “breeding bats in this old belfry” – concluding the stanza with the marvelous (and inarguable) statement "Children don't know beans." So far, in a few short lines, a vivid portrait of the narrator, living alone (except for the cats, of course!) in the empty nest, viewing her children's perception of her with a mixture of exasperation and detached amusement.

In stanza two, her mood becomes darker - "wait till they're old "– painting a vivid portrait of the deterioration – both physical and mental – of the onset of old age. The ordinary, everyday imagery she uses to describe this deterioration – "crepey skin/like washed unironed taffeta" "veins a railway map of Europe" which "spin unheard-of nightmares in diminished brains" -- is powerful and compelling.

Interestingly, in the third stanza, in contrast to the the second, the narrator uses the second person, addressing her thoughts directly to her children -- "Before your body is…" followed by a bleak, unsparing catalog of the inevitable, sharpened by the stark contrasts used to describe the vicissitudes of aging: the June weather that chills with December's breath, the unlovely skin that needs warmer furs… All building up to that final line, that so eloquently expresses, with its mingling of irony and poignancy and tenderness, the fear of aging, of loneliness, and the fundamental need to love and be loved.


*My feeling that this is a woman is so strong, that it feels unnatural to me to refer to the narrator in a gender-neutral way.