My dogs bound outside joyously.
My cat goes with exasperating caution.
She hesitates, hunched low
on the threshhold,
her head sweeping slow arcs, like radar,
eyes searching each square inch for danger.
Well acquainted with the killer in herself,
she knows death is everywhere.
The stick lying there might be a snake.
It doesn't move,
seems innocent,
after she has spent long seconds
staring intently at it,
but still . . .
Not certain about the stick,
but longing to be outdoors,
she decides,
and leaps,
landing neatly past death,
or just a stick.
She disappears
into the woods,
where anxious eyes watch
for her
and her like.
All wonder:
will the expected fangs
or claws strike today?
Meanwhile, the dogs
merrily play.
(written June 23, 2002)
Poem For Aspen >(^..^)<
Prayer is the purr
made by this creature of fur
curled close to my ear.
With mournful cries
she summons me here
from the maw
of the world
to sit quietly
in this chair and read,
or listen to my guitar
as I stare into candle fire
and discover song
stirring in these strings.
Meanwhile, the transcendent
creature we call "cat"
(or one old, sweet, white
representative of it)
sleeps on the couch back,
content to have saved me
from the world's attack.
(written January 31, 2003)
Song for a Girl
(intended as song lyrics)
I am the snake that spoiled Eden,
and no one suffers like I do.
I wanted to be pure,
I wanted to love God,
but what did I do?
I fell, I fell, I fell,
and pulled you down too.
Oh isn't this the most
inescapable hell?
You were so pure.
I was so awed to look at you,
the softness of your eye,
the avalanche of your hair.
Now you're buried under the weight of our wrong,
and I'm kneeling here.
How can we get back to where
I can withhold the word,
and call back the touch
that was worse than the death of us?
I love you, love you, love you
still,
and it's a love that is a curse.
Can we ever be healed?
(written January 15, 2003)
Jenna Was Naked
Jenna was naked,
but he was without pity.
She was warm and want,
but he didn't care.
She reached to touch,
but he kept his distance.
She reached with heat,
but he coldly noted
the highlights in her hair.
He impaled her with precision
on the four-cornered canvas
before him,
when she ached, round and real,
for solid contact there.
Jenna was naked,
and that's how he kept her:
a thing of shadow and light
that he could not come near.
(written October 2001)
(All poems copyright 2003
Denese Wong.
All rights reserved.)