in the photograph from the wildlife camera
she appears at dusk, side-on
her full tail in the air: the big ginger cat
from the farm next door

she is one of those puzzles you find
in newsprint books at the tobacconists
— which one of these doesn’t belong? —
because before and after her on the camera
were a mountain lion and a red fox

Film ain’t dead yet.
We brought three
disposables to festival,
the ones that whirr up, do thirty
exposures and flash so bright they blind you.
Immortalize the medium, the moments
are secondary.

I remember Dad, toes in the sand,
shorts and his eczema legs, with the camera,
you were building castles –
the photos are somewhere. Shining
millennial baby then,
ringing me now, drunk, crying.

i thought of the two bobcats who came
to the picture window on St. Stephen’s Day
at three o’clock in the morning
looking intently in
and the man in Finland whose dog got out:
the wolves at the forest fringe
were calling it to come and play

there was no blood, he said
the dog just disappeared into their jaws

There was more blood, this time,
the third time, third time, that you had tried to
excommunicate
yourself from this life without consulting me.
You know, when I tried that nonsense
they dragged me
kicking and screaming to the clinic.

still she comes around:
again this morning on the deer trail
where she sat gazing up
the jays and the blackbirds with new hatchlings
diving, exploding into the air

and her
wearing their worry and disapproval
— even, you think
their appetites and their hatred
like a bright blessing
the urgent chatter of the birds an electric hum
almost to the horizon

*Here you are again.
This last time past you were probably on drugs,
you were
vomiting adoration down the phone. Reborn?
You’re seventeen,
the black dog keeps going for your throat
but lifts you by the scruff.

I’m watching you fly up in a spray of wings,
loose feathers, high heels and lamentation.
I’m no lioness –
I’m just a fat, cool cat you think is mighty.
I surrendered to the mice though, when I
was your age.