Cats Can Meow the Same Frequency as Babies

Cats Can Meow the Same Frequency as Babies: An Erasure
D. Walsh Gilbert

They’d been living in the hollow of a rotted cottonwood.
Within minutes, two feral kittens, born to tuxedo
cats and abandoned, catch the scent
of salmon left inside the Have-a-Heart, which snaps up
their fragile cries and matted fur, tight and secure.
They hadn’t had a drop of milk in days.

                                         Hollow.

Within                      feral kittens
              abandoned,
                                                 a heart             snaps
                                                     in days.

Housebound after her hysterectomy,
with double-hung windows opened wide,
my daughter hears the two of them bawl. Every body
enfolds the essence of an animal.

                                Catch the scent.
                 Left inside,
           –fragile–
                           a drop of milk.