Unbecoming

 

Suddenly I find it odd that
my arms terminate in hands —
these firm and meaty pads,
the bony fingers extruded
in opposition to the outliers,

these peculiar thumbs.

Who designed these naked
anomalies, wrinkling and
weathering with the years?
Where are my clever paws, their
dexterous beauty, their
soft and ageless fur?

A word I have read
a thousand times skews
in repetition. Suddenly,
constellated letters are
strange to each other, new
and diffident neighbors unsure

if they belong together.

I want to host a potluck,
encourage them to
mingle, to
remember, to
say Oh, yes, now I recall you.
And Y, and possibly Q.

Even Q, so queer.

Otherwise, how may I speak?
having failed all
these years to learn the
immaculate language
of silence

or forgotten it.

The latter, my cats say
in their native tongue,
stillness.

Silken and sympathetic
they watch,  offer their
soft and beautiful hands to hold.
They are waiting for me to ghost
my faltering humanity, to forget

the bleakly sagging flesh the strangely
juxtaposed bone the fragmenting
byzantine brain the foolish
voluble tongue.

And open my sweetly
fanged mouth to
dawn’s damp air — profligate
with night smells —
to prick my animal ears to
life’s hushed and durable breath, to
prowl lightly this present earth

on my perfect velvet paws.

 

 

Unbecoming first appeared here last summer.

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Tags: aging, animals, body, cats, creative writing, nature, poem, poetry, senses, spirituality, wildlife