The cats in the hay field
believe anything that moves is a mouse.
The wind lends swirling gray fur
to morning grasses, legs to a cow’s bristles,
rat-tails to a snagged hat on the fence.
Their shoulders flex like a warm spoon,
claws winching their prizes to my door.
I return the hat to the hatstand,
sew the tails back on the cattle.
I urge the grasses to duck their heads.
Now the cats bring me thunderstorms.
They offer steam bursts from the kitchen,
skeins of oil in the gutter,
the first stars that fall into my rain-barrels.
They say I must hunger for something.
Well, if the cats wish to fill me,
they should not look in the fields.
Check the quiet stove pots, the hatstand,
the early rind of the sun.
Find the stillness that magnifies
the smallest of my movements,
so I become, too, what pulls the daylight open.
–
Avery Yoder-Wells (they/them) is a trans, queer poet who loves a game of Boggle and has never won a game of Monopoly. Their work can be found in Split Lip Magazine, Portland Review, Peach Mag, Aurora Journal, and elsewhere. They lurk on Twitter at @averyotherwise.