To run away would prove
the wild still within me,
taming that short fence with my claws
to catapult into the trees where birds
and squirrels and spiders sleep alone.
I look starward when you lure me
out among the sparrows. I am no monster
who lurks in twilight, but sometimes
exist memories I never made, when cool air
rushes into me through the window screen
like the moon commanding the tide–
I am not fully water but, like you, an animal embedded
with her feral past– my sisters teach me to hunt,
mice dangling from their mouths that haunt afternoon naps
on your heavy bed– my beautiful sisters never knowing
how it feels to be a princess, gold and pink
tiaras glistening between their royal ears.
I would not belong in those sprawling
forests from my dreams. The hunger
from the wild’s lack of you
would tremble my true heart home
under starlight’s navigation– to here,
where my whiskers graze your calves,
where I am cradled in your arms
in the company of heartbeat:
a sweetness, a tenderness
the feral could never dream of.
(Originally published in VAYAVYA, Spring 2016)
