I don’t know what this means.
It’s just before 8, and my darling
cat pounced behind the recycling mound
and emerged with a mouse. She carried
it up to my room to begin her dirty work,
the quest to kill without wounding,
to inflict a fear so mortal
that the small mouse body could not
contain it. I called my father.
I am 27 and still deeply in need
of the comforting sigh
of my immigrant old man.
Now, at the coffee shop offering
EPIPHANY, my drink has so much
cinnamon that the flakes stick
to my throat and turn my tongue
bitter. I wonder if this is the taste
of death, if I share the cat’s pink
maw, complicit in allowing the cycle
of scrambling, entrapment, and return
to go on. I know I’ll forget this
before she does. She’ll stalk
the oven, crepuscular, sitting
kitty-perfect and occasionally
looking at me with shining eyes.
See what I’ve done, Mother?
What I’ve caught for you?
Please, won’t you eat this meal
I’ve prepared? I’ve infused it
with the terror of living.
Natalie Bavar is a poet based in Salem, Massachusetts. Her work engages with the complexity and confusion of her mixed identity (Brazilian, Iranian, American) and the arresting power of mundanity. She holds an MFA from Boston University, and her poetry has appeared in the South Dakota Review, RockPaperPoem, and more.
