Left to the Cats

It was a sight I’d seen many times before. This one had chosen the quiet solitude of a mountain top overlooking Souda Bay. The ruin of it was beautiful. The bare stone had traces of white; scraps of flesh over bone. In youth, the building would have been handsome; the home of some romantic Adonis who had seen the view and knew his young wife would love it too. Now, tendrils of ivy twisted and seeped into cracks to pull the walls back to the earth.

The ceiling had fallen, the walls left at varying heights and the remains of a stone archway folded itself wearily over what once would have been the entrance to a courtyard. There was enough of a structure to see what the home would have once looked like. Images of Greek houses lining the bay below allowed me to fill in the gaps. Sky blue domes, wooden shutters, pottery urns filled with petals and climbing vines, a smooth, unblemished skin of white. We all saw the potential it had; we all heard the call of a retreat in the making; we all stopped and took a moment to dream. But the cats lay claim to it now as they rubbed their dusty bodies along the rough stones and sat atop the highest points to glare down at us in regal pride. As though sensing our ambitious visions of transformation, they had appeared from nowhere in droves, as though born from the crevices themselves, and as we left more came until the grounds of the ruin, inside and out, were crawling with pads and concealed claws.    

As our coach dismounted the mountain, winding around the snaking roads that hugged the cliffs, we passed an old woman, spine bent and feet shuffling, making her way to the top. Like so many others, she wore black from head to toe and carried in her hands a clutch of flowers. She was a woman on a pilgrimage, and as we passed her slowly I wondered at her destination. Was she climbing to lay her flowers at the foot of the tired archway? To shoo away the cats and sit a while in her long ago castle? To remember the hands of her husband as they had built and sculpted her precious wedding gift? We watched her painful journey until the next bend stole us away.       

A Close Call

She calls me

with her mewling

that killer

with dark eyes

and twitching tail tip

Feathers matted

slick with saliva

and cradled

in pointed blades

of green

An eye flickers

a breath puffs

a wing splays

a foot twists

a body half hidden

I hiss her away

seal her behind glass

and with gentle finger

stroke and touch

a life now in reach

I back away

to give him space

to let him know

he can go if he can

but she finds a gap

A shout echoes

a foot leaps to shoo

and with cupped hands

I lift him

to fly away

Carp Poem

by Terrance Hayes

After I have parked below the spray paint caked in the granite

grooves of the Fredrick Douglass Middle School sign

where men and women sized children loiter like shadows

draped in the outsized denim, jerseys, bangles, braids, and boots

that mean I am no longer young, after I have made my way

to the New Orleans Parish Jail down the block

where the black prison guard wearing the same weariness

my prison guard father wears buzzes me in, 

I follow his pistol and shield along each corridor trying not to look

at the black men boxed and bunked around me

until I reach the tiny classroom where two dozen black boys are

dressed in jumpsuits orange as the pond full of carp I saw once in Japan,

so many fat snaggle-toothed fish ganged in and lurching for food

that a lightweight tourist could have crossed the pond on their backs

so long as he had tiny rice balls or bread to drop into the water

below his footsteps which I’m thinking is how Jesus must have walked

on the lake that day, the crackers and wafer crumbs falling

from the folds of his robe, and how maybe it was the one fish

so hungry it leapt up his sleeve that he later miraculously changed

into a narrow loaf of bread, something that could stick to a believer’s ribs,

and don’t get me wrong, I’m a believer too, in the power of food at least,

having seen a footbridge of carp packed gill to gill, packed tighter

than a room of boy prisoners waiting to talk poetry with a young black poet,

packed so close they might have eaten each other had there been nothing else to eat.

The Place I Want To Get Back To

by Mary Oliver

is where
    in the pinewoods
      in the moments between
        the darkness

and first light
    two deer
      came walking down the hill
        and when they saw me

they said to each other, okay,
    this one is okay,
      let's see who she is
        and why she is sitting

on the ground like that,
    so quiet, as if
      asleep, or in a dream,
        but, anyway, harmless;

and so they came
    on their slender legs
      and gazed upon me
        not unlike the way

I go out to the dunes and look
    and look and look
      into the faces of the flowers;
        and then one of them leaned forward

and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
    bring to me that could exceed
      that brief moment?
        For twenty years

I have gone every day to the same woods,
    not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
      Such gifts, bestowed,
        can't be repeated.

If you want to talk about this
    come to visit. I live in the house
      near the corner, which I have named
        Gratitude. 

Understanding Squirrels

He sat and ate a berry in front of me

his mouth working so fast

as though he had a lot to say

so I listened

intent before I realised

I could not speak squirrel

and yet I knew

he was annoyed

when I edged nearer

and he scrabbled away.

My Faith to Me - Re-write

is a sloppy kiss

on the smooth of my forehead

that I am all too quick

to wipe away;

is a strong hand

reaching out

to brush the dust from my skin

when I have sat too still;

is a licked finger

smearing

across my chin

to eliminate the dirt;

is a friendly voice

blasting through

the din of a mocking crowd

with truth;

is a trail of footprints

stretching ahead

deep troughs in the sand

like inverted stepping stones;

is the first bite of dinner

that fills my tank

and sends me out

to jump in the puddles;

is a letter

in permanent ink

folded in my pocket

until the creases crack;

is the warmth of fire

on frostbitten fingers

and lashes frozen

by tears;

is the spread of a map

leading

always in the right direction

rarely by the shortest route;

is the place

I rest

and take time 

to breathe.

If Only

The lift doors winked gold and silver. I’d been waiting for this day ever since we arrived. The Empire State Building was the cherry on top of the icing on my New York cake. Long queues of colourful tourists snaked between ropes and chattered in what felt like seventy six different languages. Irritable children leaned against patient parents, asking for juice, for crisps, for I Spy, for 20 Questions, for the fun to start.

Inside the lift my excitement grew. This was it. The bell pinged, the doors slid open and…it was tiny. Cramped. I had to utter ‘excuse me, pardon me’ about twenty times. How had they made it look so spacious on Sleepless in Seattle? I approached the edge, rested my hand on the viewer that may have been touched by Tom Hanks, and stared out over New York. The view, at least, was not tiny. Although cramped it was. How did people find space to move between all those buildings and cars and bus shelters and kiosks? The city was a smart grid of tarmac, an ordered circuit board of electricity and sparks. Central Park sat like a postage stamp. It had taken us ages to walk its length and width, and an entire afternoon to appreciate the zoo situated in one corner. I couldn't even see that zoo now, couldn't fathom how it fit. I felt like a child in my father’s arms, looking down on the world with a new perspective. I imagined standing on street level and seeing myself looking down from the top, my head a tiny pinprick balanced between brick, glass and sky.

The man in my ear told me to locate the driving range set over the Hudson River. This was where the Titanic had been due to dock. He told me to move round (excuse me, pardon me) to look at Ground Zero. He told me that at 9.49 am on 28^th July 1945, Lieutenant Colonel William Smith had crashed a B25 bomber into the north side of the Empire State Building on the 79^th floor, and yet here it was, still standing.

Later, I thumbed through a book of photographs taken at the time of construction. I looked at the flat-capped men stood precariously on girders, the city a flow of microscopic activity beneath them, and thought ‘If only you’d been around to build the Twin Towers.’