It is dark inside the belly of the beast
And warm And wet. I read a news story, or perhaps someone mentioned it over dinner, about a person who was swallowed by a whale a real life Jonah And this was recently. There is air in the belly of the beast And time. You can breathe deeply Lungs within lungs And wait for the perfect moment. A hurricane touched down the east end of my island Some weeks ago now And I wondered how long I could move along inside the eye of the hurricane Traveling at the same speed as the winds It is quiet inside the belly of the beast And dim yellow light Like when morning creeps and casts itself over the warm and purring body of my cat Asleep on the foot of my bed. I went to the London Zoo and walked along the tiger enclosure High walls and netting. They are so orange against the grey and grim skies of Camden So striped and still. Why run in a room so small? And their bellies expand with hunger for space And I know that in any other circumstance I am their meal, walking. It is empty inside the belly of the beast Pang-ed and unsatisfied, even after a five course meal and dessert. It is the Platonic cave echoing And the black hole that scientists are creating in a laboratory in Haifa And the well at the edge of the Coraline woods And the space between your bed and the wall. It is dark inside the belly of the beast And warm And wet Like a womb Like a swamp And some days I am the belly And some days I am the beast.
0 Comments
In my softest and most precious times
I can understand how lucky I am to sit warmly in bed, with a perfect cat clawing her way across my stomach My breasts My thighs Nails clipping awkwardly into the duvet Knees angled and awkward like a chicken Strutting and yowling at 2 AM It is no one’s fault but my own That she believes 2 AM is the perfect time to complain Or announce her undying love in caterwauling tones As I was the fool who woke, one night, from woolen dreams To pull her close and tell her she was perfect And pet her velvet ears and let her know that I will wake up when she calls me In my softest and most painful times I can understand how brief and stacked the time is We have had wonderful days of kittenhood and claws out Of blown-eyed catnip wondering and nighttime mouse haunt stalking And years of coming home with a backpack or a suitcase or nothing To know that she remembers me still and will still crawl warm into my lap And let me pet her little belly I don’t want to lose this, I think up into the midnight As she curls awkwardly on the floor in a pile of my clothes Or sprawled across a cardboard box that I bought with things for me Or meowing and nipping at my fingertips I don’t want to lose this little life Why did you come into my life this way? And make yourself so perfect And so fragile And so wild That even a wind could blow you far from me And nothing but death could come between us two My cat doesn’t care. Even now She sits on the floor and licks her asshole And understand that it’s enough. All of it, taken as one. This soft and precious time It is enough. |
Authornew creative challenge to write a thing a day. just a ten minute thing. Archives
April 2023
Categories |