"
I was a thing to be done to."
More Perihelion:
Bob Sward's Writer's Friendship Series
A quick list to poets featured in this issue:
(The Cat)
Saw the barn door at a distance
When my surfaces pulled themselves apart,
Three glabrous forms, whiney beneath me,
that appeared then complete.
Lay down in the offering earth,
I incumbent, wishing for,
leaving it to let it happen for me--
fur down, back down
to the cool ground, all unalloyed
as if this once were singular.
I was a thing to be done to
as myself to myself I held out the string,
coaxing the body indoors--
I had been here before: by the slow cows,
their round eyes big as paws,
by the goats -- was a thing to be done
across, as the sky--
alone to the saw-edged ribbon of light
cutting the body
from the throat, bearing down.
Until I was not:
searching for food.
This time, perhaps, if they stay with me,
I will catch for them each
a bird.
_______________________________________________________________