.

Each night we go off to bed
and close the bedroom door
barring the cat from entry
into our sanctuary, the only
room in the house she is not
free to roam at her will.
We do this because we are allergic,
because she is a cat and cannot
be trusted not to do something
we might regret in the morning,
because she is nocturnal
and practices her feline arias
in the single digit hours
of the morning, or perhaps
just simply because we can
and that is the last vestige
of control she allows us
to exercise in her domain