Sherry Chandler » from “The Mother on the Other Side of the World”
from “The Mother on the Other Side of the World”
a yellow cat from the next field over hungry finds
her way to the feed bowls inside our toolshed atop
the deepfreeze our striped gray lets this happen
then moves low to the ground
into position crouching outside
staring at the only escape
too frightened now
to eat the stray too stares at it
neither can see the other
for the longest time
something dark emerges
almost audibly circles
of their silence their
motionlessness pulse out
into the greater commotions the spins and counterspins
including the entire backyard the neighboring fields
many horses the adjoining areas
each of us moving in God knows
how many different directions at once
these two cats one almost wild
the other almost domesticated
their own little seesaw
the whole backyard seesaws
that mother on the other side
of the world
many fears
but only this one silence…
— James Baker Hall, The Mother on the Other Side of the World (Sarabande, 1999)
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