This world you teach me is velvet
mice in your palm, on the carpet,
in my teeth, repeat. And the silver
crinkle ball that shines purple in sun
light that I cannot stop batting across
the floor. I sometimes push it into
that unreachable darkness underneath
the couch downstairs. DQ told me there
once was a cat who left and never
returned, and she thinks about him
constantly, expecting him each entrance
of outside light, and I tell her no, there’s only
me and you, and I run around the house,
seeking his faint traces. And she tells me of days–
long, unimaginable days– when no one is around
and you just have to bide your time and wait.
It seems so lonely. I run to her and
she screams and retreats into the Cavern of
Bags. I follow her in too deep. Please
tell me you will always be around.
I need someone here to complete
such important work, this
drive inside that bursts and blooms
its way across the corners
of these rooms I’m learning,
this love I newly navigate far
from small, stuffed cages
I used to think
was the world
until I met the space
within your affection,
a bond of greater
boundlessness.

(originally published in Unlikely Stories Mark V, Winter 2023)