Speaking Poetry

In her dreams, my cat is this night
in which I sit and write about
a cat I don’t have…

I

Miu: the Egyptians knew what to make of you
disarmingly curled beneath the gilded chair
of the Mistress of the house
as nights fell down with no sound of rodents gnawing in the pantry,
as nights opened into operatic silences deep enough
to nurture potent speculations
about your true otherness
beyond aloof huntress
with the tangling teeth –
knew what to make of you
who didn’t speak poetry
as if to spare them the chore of making
less of you than dreaming suggested they could.

And then those peculiar white elephants of hope,
and windows opening behind the stars,
as mute paws with claws retracted
padded across burning sand daily
as if across snow –
slant imprints left in their soft facts,
their staid, too tidy prayers.

II

On Telegraph Hill
above Metaphor Road,
a lighthouse holding
a mummified cat.

Miu, also known as
Felis silvestris libyca,
sits fixated incognito.

At ten past midnight,
psychic weather & asymmetry
have their way with loose verbs.

Fog moves in on little feet.

III

Still dreaming,
the dark cat shifts in my lap.
She seems to have set the two of us afloat
in a millennia mosaic that fits
like a warm coin in the palm of my skull.

I’m loathe to call her anything now…