Photo by Casey Horner
Cats and Stars and Rope
Chase Hart
Crash in the kitchen–cats make bedlam devoid
of lasting hurt. Quick curse, a simple sweep,
we play again in cozy trapezoids
of sunlight–swatting strings on rugs, then sleep.
But we’re creatures strung between the scales
of background radiation from the big bang
and placid cats with claws and fur and tails
who gobble birds as stars do worlds–no pang.
We cook and wrack ourselves for breaking glass–
wine glasses, eyeglasses, mirrored, polarized panes
of one another’s eyes, whole cities of glass
sometimes. Beneath the sun, so many pains.
And we endure them all and live with hope,
so long as we have cats and stars. And rope.
Chase Hart
Crash in the kitchen–cats make bedlam devoid
of lasting hurt. Quick curse, a simple sweep,
we play again in cozy trapezoids
of sunlight–swatting strings on rugs, then sleep.
But we’re creatures strung between the scales
of background radiation from the big bang
and placid cats with claws and fur and tails
who gobble birds as stars do worlds–no pang.
We cook and wrack ourselves for breaking glass–
wine glasses, eyeglasses, mirrored, polarized panes
of one another’s eyes, whole cities of glass
sometimes. Beneath the sun, so many pains.
And we endure them all and live with hope,
so long as we have cats and stars. And rope.