Time passes slow in the distance as liquid
lopes across the surface of the plains. Your mother
is dead, her long hair thins under the dirt.
She holds a special love for the cat, its silken fur,
lean claws and crooked smile held hard within
her sagging breast. It stalks toward you, bares
the hated face, the long body and thin
tail strike the air as it turns, a blow
that bends the wind. You realise that long
face has brought into being that long body,
that nowhere in existence do the twin prongs
that crest its long spine live wholly as you imagine.

You see things pass then, one after the other.
The old feelings mean little to you now.
Dew on the crooked stem of a crooked log,
fallen into place beside the oldest stones.

[Editor’s Note: Publication of this poem was made possible by a gift from John Klima during our annual Kickstarter.]