548 Readings | 2 Ratings

The Cat’s Bell



There was a coming to, a thawing.

It was almost empirical
how white thinned to show
bones of a love so holy.
Like snowmelt at thirty-three degrees,
it burnt the flesh free.

There was nothing
more than my own slow exposure,
and I believed I could become
observable even to myself.

Consider the cat who crosses the wet grass
her body part stone part river.
Consider the bell
how its tin bones make a body of air
and how it passes through us.
Consider wingshatter.

Prayer was a long pier on which I walked.
Before me the sky appeared to open.


Posted 09/01/11
Published in The Fifth Wednesday Review, Fall 2010
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