Rainbow Bridge

He’s waiting there, perhaps chasing butterflies, little creatures with wings that he has never seen, for he never felt sunlight without a window in between, never felt the wind without a screen, not in his lifetime anyway. But in the meadow there is sunlight, and yes, a cat can frolic too, even an orange-white Japanese bobtail who in life never ran for more than several seconds at a time whenever dinner was called. Above the golden hills near the rainbow bridge are clouds of memories, merging into one another just as love merges with laughter, joy with tears. He watches those clouds, watches the memories glow and dim as he waits, wiggling his little bobtail, twitching his whiskers under an eternal autumn sky. There he sees his kitten self, standing on trembling legs as he emerges from a paper bag to the delight of eyes that would grow to love him. There he sees himself , a kitten no longer, sprawled lazily across a book under lamplight, urging the hands that have now stroked him for years to put away the books, urging the boy to whom those hands belong to go to bed, so that the blankets might be warm for both of them. He watches the clouds drift before curling into a ball in the late afternoon light, purring softly while waiting, waiting for that boy to arrive.

A Thousand Snowflakes

More insidious than anger, colder than grief, it seeps through my veins, crystallizing like fingers of ice between shards of porcelain. My headphones alone hold my pieces together; a single wire wrapped around a vase consumed by fractures. I wonder if Socrates had felt this way when hemlock crept from his legs to his neck, closing softly over his heart. If the great philosopher too had felt this incurable cold, then perhaps I am not so weak even when I tremble in the night, watching lights go out one by one outside. Petrified into repetition: sleeping, waking, working, writing; the embers within are growing dim. I cannot entertain conversation, cannot muster a smile to assure outsiders of my courage. The ice has reached that pool of courage too, spreading blossoms of white across its misty surface. My wishes have been swept away by the wind, my prayers drowned out by cries of anguish. I cannot see the heavens tonight, only endless black, and a thousand haunting snowflakes spreading across my skin.

Lights

Lyrics wind around my finger, floating away at my fingertips to weave through the air and dance behind motionless curtains. I have never seen those white drapes so still; in this endless hour, anything is possible, and perhaps those folds of cotton are white marble stripped from the dress of a forgotten goddess. Like that faceless, armless goddess, the drapes are silent. The words are growing quieter, passing through glass panes to greet the soft night. Midnight struck less than an hour ago, but time works in circular ways, and now morning is night; I am asleep and awake. This is a daydream and a nightmare. There are more constellations than I can count beneath the ink-black sky. Orion has been captured, his bow has been burnt to ashes. I see not a single star; the clouds must have won tonight, those invaders who, dissatisfied with consuming the sun have now laid claim to the stars. Tomorrow they will wage war on the heavens. But tonight, beneath the starless sky the constellations remain, from my window, from those of strangers’, and under the cloak of night we are kin.

A Godless Place

The gulls were orbiting above us like falcons waiting for the kill. The clouds descended upon us, heavy with rain—a grey so deep one would wonder if the heavens had moved away somehow, and another realm was above the now-quiet city. The gods were at war perhaps with something sinister and strange, just as we were now fighting an invisible foe that sought not just to terrify, but to kill. Indeed, I had never seen the city so still; we have been beseiged, we were Troy again, but I did not know which gods were on our side. A godless city, someone had once said to me, as an insult I think, but the words echoed around me now. Whether this was a godless place I could not say, whether we were fighting on our own I could not know, but here we make our own miracles.

Submerged

What does a poem do in times of chaos? Who can it save? Who can it uplift? I could describe to you the way winter light fell upon my open palms just days ago, blue as deep and endless as the sky rippling across my hand, but perhaps you would shake your head and point to endless screens, endless pages, a growing toll of fear and mourning. The Muses are rather silent to me on days as grey as this one, rather quiet lest their goodwill be taken for insolence, and they take pity on me by sending me not poems but nightmares, the raw substance of stories—yet the world is nightmarish enough. I could tell you a tale of a grandmother counting droplets of rain as they splash upon her window, a window of a room that has become a prison and a haven. “Don’t come in,” she scolds her son who wants to bring her some broth, and she shuts her eyes as the metal gate closes softly and the footsteps pad away. But perhaps you would tell me you have heard enough of this misery, that you need a breath of spring, even if illusory, and, that if it would please me, could I not write for you a window to spring? But I cannot, for the Muses are silent as is my soul, muted as my spirit lingers with that old woman, and we watch the rain fall.

Narcissus

Beyond the glow of the great hall, in the darkness behind a lattice window, a figure called to me. Her face was awash with tears, or perhaps with rain, and in the downpour she seemed to grow fainter, like ink diluted in water. Her limbs were made not of bone, but of light, watery light too timid to touch my fingers as I pressed my hand against the glass. Not a ghost, not even a memory, just a remnant of the rain yearning for warmth, a nymph who sought to perish in candlelight. I could not see her eyes; they were closed at some moments, glancing away at others, but an invisible finger seemed to trace upon the glass whenever I looked closer; with the strokes of a mocking lover or of a tormented artist, the spectral finger veiled her gaze with rain. I cupped my hands over the glowing window, desecrating the square of light with darkness, and I plunged into those endless depths, shading my eyes as I peered out into the night, and saw nothing.