What the Cat Thinks of Snow

oh, January snow, how

you fall, dry & light

all morning & most of

the afternoon, as if

a being — intelligent &

rational — ran the show

not that such a being

exists, no, snow’s from

a rulebook humans are

ever learning to read

these days they claim

to “know” about gravity

pressure, temperature

& yes, the ion game —

intermolecular bonds

ergo, voila, snow

yet (I’m licking my paw)

they can’t actually see

electron pairs bond

(whisker twitch) though

certain 21st-century

wunderkind skilled in

microscopy claim

to see them — but why

go on about science?

I’d rather see a mouse

running on snow

Who's to Judge

I sit in a raised box

among eleven others

while a judge (overly

fond of the qualifying

clause) delivers 

remarks about justice. 

I pay attention. I try

to map his reasoning

onto Boolean logic —

IF (x AND y) OR (NOT b)

OR k, THEN q, ELSE p — 

but I cannot parse.

When he asks me

if I believe I can weigh

evidence, make a judgment

based on the law

I say, I imagined I might

before you spoke

but you’ve convinced me

I cannot. He frowns.

He signals the clerk

to lead me down & out.

Had I stayed, I’d not

have played at being god.

The Body Does What the Body Does

purples, erupts, exfoliates

think & say whatever you will

the body is you & doesn’t give

a fig about you, it magnifies

& depletes you, elates & defeats you

your body makes or breaks you

you pay attention, fight back

or you pretend to pay it no mind

all this intention, much as it may

amuse you, wastes your time

whatever your body wants to do

it does, tra la la, despite you

Mouse Feed

one mouse steals traps — picture

one foot caught under the metal bar

three feet racing toward the hole

dragging the trap behind, she chews

her leg free, sad, but she’s alive

so far she’s stolen three traps

she’s down to one foot — picture her

slow hop to the hole, nestmates

helping her pull the trap home

feet the other mice might eat

another story is three mice lose

one foot each — picture the farce

oh, our world, rife with cameras & mics

but none expose this lair, how

mice view traps, the tales they share

Jezebel

when I neared

the fraught age of

early adolescence

my mother relayed

the legend of an infant

resplendent in white silk & lace

stowed away on an ocean liner

departing Le Havre

approaching New York

the captain pressed for

a Christian benefactor

from those traveling first class

e.g., my great-great-grandfather

an Episcopal divine

this child became

my great-grandmother Genevieve

when any woman in our family

strayed, whether they

dropped out of school or used drugs

shacked up or got knocked up

or married down or

heaven forfend, divorced

my mother hastened to blame

that foreign blood

women have more to lose

than men, she’d say

& warn me once again 

about that Jezebel, a cousin

reputed to fool around

hubris not to be condoned

only men

could play Don Juan

Winter Wood

a woodpecker

I know by sound

strobes from tree to tree

black white black white

red head — I move

it disappears

nearby a hollow cone

augers into a mossy

pine — gray bark

torn down to wine red

down to carroty orange

to ivory splinters

the cone’s tip

is a tenebrous hole

fringed by velvety shreds

at the tree’s core

a murky depth

not heartwood

as if the pine trunk

held not inner

but outer space

a macrocosm

pileated woodpecker

hammers its way to

Albedo

she’s a natural here

                              winter woods

          snow, snow melt

                                                            grainy slabs of basalt

                                        yet tense, fearful

                                                                                grief has her 

here where once she strode

                              now she’s dimmed

          so fruitless to say

                                                            time heals — nothing heals, though time

                                        blurs, softens, mutes

                                                                                & nothing stops

pain, ready

                              every second

          to flare, to flame

                                                            yet sunshine on snow

                                        boosts albedo

                                                                                cools the earth

Rattlesnake Cliffs

two blue bars painted on a tree trunk

tell me the trail turns here, left or right

not specified, so I go left into unbarred wild

farther & farther — I know I’m wrong

though what is wrong about here vs there?

woods is woods, the mountain

never asked to be surveyed, to be signed

to be designated human-friendly space

by the time I make it back to the two bars

I know at least which way the trail

does not go, I know the freedom of turning

any which way, plus I know what’s growing

inside the root ball of the upturned pine

I’ve scaled the slope down to the water

visited mossy rocks & rills seldom seen

though as lovely as any along the trail

I turn right this time, cross the stream

climb a much steeper hill on a wider trail

truer to call it an old logging road

though no wheeled-beast could step

cautiously across the stream as I did

one foot on one stone, one on another

wishing not to fall & also wishing

yes — heedless, helpless, stunned —

to slip, to fall, to be swept away

Common Sense

if lichens & moss cling with rhizines

with holdfasts to tree bark, to boulders

to glacial erratics . . . if a bowerbird

ferries horsehair, mowed hay, hedge

trimmings, fern fronds, blueberries

weaves all to a cavernous nest . . . if

an animal has pockets, has a pocket

carries in her pocket a wooden bead

a rusted ball bearing, a cashew nut

any kind of amulet, of charm . . . how

can we fathom what anything else feels?

Family Reunion

the guest bedroom holds many more things than a bed —

shelving packed with clothes, boxed items, loose items

large & small, dust & cat hair everywhere including

the bedcover — when I pull it back to look at the sheets

I find a cockroach dead on the pillow, the rest of house

mirrors the bedroom, overstocked & undercleaned

I pick at my supper, excuse myself before the others

return to the bedroom where I squirrel cockroach

plus pillow behind a closet door, fully clothed in the bed

I read, worry, barely sleep, & in the morning I stubbornly

tearfully insist that I must leave, everyone’s confused

they protest, later I learn they were irate, I organize

a ride to the airport where I rent a car, drive two days

home, lick my wound — the breach takes forever to heal