CAT FLIGHT
CAT FLIGHT
CAT FLIGHT
CAT FLIGHT

William Doreski

While we sleep, the cats unfold
flimsy wings and fly to the moon.
They return with little secrets

that would ease our fatal passions
if we could tune into cat
telepathy and understand them.

Instead, we dream our silly dreams
and clutch each other, drowning
in surreal landscapes lacking

dimension enough to save us.
Last night I discovered a plain
cotton dress hanging on a hook

in a bathroom in a grisly house
of a hundred mysterious shadows.
As I stared, the dress filled itself

with the rotted carcass of someone
met in the first draft of my life.
When I woke the rain had stopped

and the cats were sleeping firmly
between us, their wings hidden.
I wish I hadn’t seen that corpse,

too easily identified.
I wish the cats could tell me
in Marianne Moore’s plain English

how they can fly in a vacuum
and which secrets would save me
from the dead-end of my dream life,

and which would resolve the wars
nibbling at the rind of the planet.
The cats snore their little snores.

I roll over gently to avoid
startling them awake. Refreshed
by the rain, the moon peers through

the window to incite me
with its array of cosmic images—
each so familiar to the cats

they can sleep off every indictment
and awaken with hunger shining
like silver ore in their smiles.

AUTHOR BIO
AUTHOR BIO
AUTHOR BIO
AUTHOR BIO