Two Rooted Cats Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Roots sink the slab
of my space outdoors
into cackling cracks

behind the stretched
flowing davenport

in the floating
living room
raising thickly feathered wings
over two glued balls.

Two planted cats
on the balcony
spraying smooth
swirls of themselves.

Tree and bird whispers
fall with an umbrella
of noise and song
the animals do not see.

The sun drops a wider glassy
parasol of glow,
as I melt down, streams
of candle wax

bandaging my face
to see bleached silhouettes
of the folded-up cats.

Two speckled balls
thinning out
into tailed pieces of mist.

(ii)

Still, bowed
to their curved loops

dwindling into
strayed ellipses
of round shadows.

Frozen into themselves,
thick arcs
wrapping up light
in their sleep.

Melted into their tails,
the way life
is lived, when doors

unbolt only to mist
and dew and fog,

a flat sky
splitting into wavy
showers of light

drilled into man's inner bowl
to lift mountains
and roll light-year-old
rocks through a narrow door

to find two planted
cats growling
quietly in their breeze

of sleep, as I reach out
to the sun's volcano

for the flame poured out
a shimmer's mouth
to flip my eyes
to two purring cats

building a dome
of eye and ear fondles
in a rising pyramid
of winks and pulling gazes.