By Clara Elizabeth
My Beloved Keeper,
You work early mornings
Return late at night
You are gone for days at a time.
I have created an entire world for myself, in this empty house of Yours.
I have gilded the plaster walls with the ornament and leaf of my thinking mind.
I’ve strung up thoughts like streamers with which I bat and play.
Every time You return to feed me, Holy Light, I yelp and yowl in delighted angst
And climb Your legs in order to be held.
But You arrive to find I have torn up the embroidered chairs in Your absence
And in my manic boredom.
You are peeved,
For You seem like God,
And all I do is Want From You:
Your kitchen is filled with glittering fish,
Their Gem eyes deep enough to take Refuge in.
I whimper and slither dangerously
around Your feet.
If You are generous You drop a scrap,
When You are Loving You drop a whole cut.
Yet, any time I catch so much as a scale from You,
I am so ecstatic to be invited to the feast,
That I dash wildly like the beast I am Kill in jaws,
To gnaw and slobber;
Play with Your gift,
Tinker,
Mull it over,
Display and admire it,
In my graveyard of rotting trophies.
So in my absence You incorrectly believe I am at peace.
When the bones are clean,
Only the proof is left.
You have closed the Door
To my beam and dry-wall Cage.
My God, You are Gone,
I just wanted You,
But only my Toys remain.