Where is the truth in the day,
this hot one, that suddenly
arrives from the past?
What does it mean that I was
a skinny, golden being then, with
light-filled bones?
My body was so pale and happy
to be lying in a litter
of new kittens.
Their shallow mewing breath.
Their tiny teeth,
blinking.
What house, the crumbling
sun porch?
What year?
I knew the smallness
of myself in the world, then –
Is that it?
Or the neighbor girls in lace
and gingham,
the obvious simplicity of life,
the wreath of time,
the neatly-tied bow of
memory?
Or is it just that I hadn’t met you yet,
and now yours is the life I stand
all my other lives beside?
Or that after bleeding for them in
the years since,
I’ve lost my compassion for cats,
and that’s what kittens grow into?
The mystery.
I am still lying here.
Their softness is still with me,
even now.
