Starla came home to us three years ago.
Immediately, overwhelmed she
Scaled my spine, claw through cloth and 
I know I scared her. I know. Her
golden eyes, wide-on alert for portals to the unseen,
I was stricken I’d lose her to the rubble 
of me that that life had left behind.

In my memories, it took weeks to coax her from beneath the couch, 
but time stamps on photos show that by the fourth day, 
she was under the fastidious wing of Dotdot
—the parentified eldest daughter I never knew I’d create—
in a week, she was venturing sniffs 
of my mouth, my neck, my fingernails

Now (almost any now you can imagine) she 
has wedged her malleable belly 
into my palm like a sentient floof of football
—expanding and contracting into the stretchmarked softness of my sides.

I know I can’t be all bad if she knows my hands are safeholds.

What more could I ever wished for in an afterlife than proof that I am worth forgiving?