The Black Cat/ Nobody's Woman

As my dear friend Hedgewitch sometimes does, I have decided to post both the original, much different version of this poem, and then follow it with the reworked and final version. 

 THE BLACK CAT

I asked the black cat
and the black cat told me true
how the half moon cracked the window's edge
and how it was, with you.

Tea in the painted cup
frost upon the mat
never let the half moon in
or listen to a cat.
_______

 NOBODY'S WOMAN

I am nobody's woman.
I dreamt that I knelt at night to the water's edge,
A falling leaf to the dark-eyed deep;
A girl again,
Running her hand through the blue future.

I woke, and got up,
Wrapping myself in the wings of a million dark birds.
Who was there, after all,
To kiss the color of the cardinal
Onto my skin like brightness to a candle?

I am nobody's woman,
And because rain has warped the gate,
I cannot close it;
I cannot stop the stars from wheeling,
Nor my tears from wandering out among them.

In the night,
Risen from sleep as from a bath gone to chill,
I make muffins in my tiny kitchen
For the comfort of their aroma
And to try to lure the moon to my open window.
I long to lay my head easy
Where curve meets silence
And die there, content.

My pride is hurt, and I realize how I must seem,
When only a black tom
Seeks the yellow light and its sill stained with blackberries;
He knows I wanted a woman,
Like calling like,
But he is kind enough not to call me ridiculous.
Here I am, no longer young,
But still filled with the same sharp need...
I am a rain of useless poems--
I am the sand, with the tide receding--
I am nobody's woman.
_____