I Am Trying To Leave Myself Behind
The cat pads across the centipede grass,
nose to the ground, searching for a persistent mole.
Yesterday, he growled at me when I bent
with a wad of paper towels over his quivering Icarus—
wings incapable of flight, small gulping agonies
caught in the maw of a being without pity, despite a wrecked appendage,
hanging splayed and useless from long, glamorous whiskers.
And while some things aren’t meant for saving,
I’ve been saved for now by some dire-faced angel
who holds me spent and panting in a paper shroud
she’ll place gently on the porch railing
then close the door on my fate,
which is a sorry one, I’m here to tell you.
Julia Wendell is Founding Editor of Galileo Press. Her sixth full-length volume of poems, The Art of Falling, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2022. She lives in Aiken, South Carolina, and is a three-day event rider.
