Remains of Barney
by Sean Sexton
There are none—he’s disappeared as he arrived
through the slender air, affixing to our lives
as though we’d been acquainted a thousand years.
Athlete in a tuxedo, the black and white coiffure
of that elegant body— lithe, Orcan,
precocious as lightning.
Disappearance always his second art, practiced
upon four households, four cat food dishes set
out for him, he managed to empty daily,
keeping a presence, drowsing settees
windowsills and the daybed, in schedules
of philandering unbeknownst to any of us.
He leaves confusion in remain of whose he was
or who were his, and a certain levity in our sense
of lost visitation. He could circle the house entire
and rush one door having just been put out the other,
never failing to gain, when access was his goal
reinstatement in the household.
The algae-filled dish of rainwater is a disused
memento of his absence, four weeks passed.
We’re certain something’s happened, though we
claimed nothing could catch him, not coyote
nor traffic. In his late-night excursions from
barn to back door. His soft, persistent, three AM
paw thuddings, the destruction of my sleep. Ever
present, except when he wasn’t, and ready any hour
for fawning caress and endless draughts of attention.
He imposed upon us like the seasons,
better or worse. That I speak of him at all—
reveals my disbelief, and yet who would expel
Apollo from one’s life once he moved in. Never drive
beauty from your door, should be the entreaty of
any cultivation, for it will leave soon enough on its
own. And he is gone whence he came, vanished
into the ether, and there’s a vacancy,
in the abiding hostelry of our hearts.
Sean Sexton was born in Indian River County and grew up on his family's Treasure Hammock Ranch. He divides his time between managing a 700-acre cow-calf and seed stock operation, painting, and writing. He has kept daily sketch and writing journals since 1973. He is author of Blood Writing, Poems, Anhinga Press, 2009, The Empty Tomb, University of Alabama Slash Pine Press, 2014, Descent, Yellow Jacket Press, 2018. and May Darkness Restore, Poems, Press 53, 2019. He has performed at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, NV, Miami Book Fair International, Other Words Literary Conference in Tampa, FL and the High Road Poetry and Short Fiction Festival, in Winston Salem, NC. He was nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize and received a FL Individual Artist’s Fellowship in 2001. He is a board member of the Laura Riding Jackson Foundation (Lauraridingjackson.org) and founding event chair of the Annual Poetry and Barbeque held each April, now in its tenth year. He also co-founded Poetry and Organ Advent and Lenten Concert Series at Community Church in Vero Beach, FL (ccovb.org) featuring nine concerts annually attracting poets from all over the US. He became inaugural Poet Laureate of Indian River County in 2016.
