A small cat, delicate,
feeling right, feeling black and tan,
sleeps slit-eyed in a shaft of sun.
Cats move in shadow, move in light,
but this one sleeps past remonstrance.
We are motes splayed in broken points of light
that swirl near the cat’s ear.

These are islands of black bedded in white
and we are the trail from each to each
and the cat’s entrails moving in shadow, moving in sleep.
We are chosen to see this and carry it to light,
to be shadows of people pinned to a painted ceiling
by a candle flicker, and never to feel right.

April 7, 1977

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