The Mother on the Other Side of the World
a yellow cat from the next field over hungry finds
her way to the feed bowls inside our toolshed atop
the deepfreeze our striped gray lets this happen
then moves low to the ground
into position crouching outside
staring at the only escape
too frightened now
to eat the stray too stares at it
neither can see the other
for the longest time
something dark emerges
almost audibly circles
of their silence their
motionlessness pulse out
into the greater commotions the spins and counterspins
including the entire backyard the neighboring fields
many horses the adjoining areas
each of us moving in God knows
how many different directions at once
these two cats one almost wild
the other almost domesticated
get their version of it
line up perfectly
great longing compacted
their own little seesaw
the whole backyard seesaws
the mother on the other side
of the world
many fears
but only this one silence
the stray’s tail was all I saw
of her when she got out of there
that night beginning the plot of this story
I was to see about that much of her
again the next night in my headlights
at the side of a narrow road
a half mile away
yellow eyes
echoing outward the darkness it was
gonglike and out there in the expanding middle
I was to see more and more of her
in the days to follow
she hangs out in the culvert
I pull off the road and climb down
with a plastic cup of food
emptying it out on a scrap board I took down there
she stays at the other end of the culvert
as though she’d never ever come closer
sweet talk doesn’t run her off
but she prefers quiet it seems
occasionally she’ll have a dead mouse
or chipmunk prominently displayed
a gift for me perhaps or maybe
a reminder of the role
she allows me to play
she never lets me see her
lick herself or sleep
— James Baker Hall, The Mother on the Other Side of the World (Sarabande, 1999)
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