24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Muse #4: The Deer
Frannie Z
At the Game Farm,
a young deer
grabbed hold
of my mom’s skirt
and worried it
with her teeth,
thinking my mom
some large print-embossed
flower.
Forty years later,
after she died,
two male deer
crashed into our yard
in autumn rutting season.
Then, in May,
a fawn
tiptoed under
the neighbor’s hedge
and crossed
over a fallen tree.
She stood,
fearless,
until we inched
the camera out.
Then she fled.
Muse #3: The Goats
Frannie Z
“Anak kambing”
(child of the goat):
tiny white goat
spun around
the kampong.
Until she stopped,
lifted her head
to my hand
and ranged between
my legs
scouting new smells.
My husband fought
the male goat,
trying his young muscles
as if he were wrestling
with stags
in the ancient rite.
He corralled the female
for milk
to give his cat.
They moved from Chicago
to rural Arizona.
Spring the goat
comes inside
when it’s hot.
She circles the rug
and teases the dog,
To her, a goat
with a growl.
You are a bastard,
but I loved you
because you couldn’t watch
and kept inside
as their goat lives
ended under the knife.
You run to women,
butting them
with words
in four languages,
heating them
with your eyes.
Some day
you may meet one
who frolics,
then steals away
to sniff new grass.
Muse #2: The Cats
by Frannie Z
Their names: Angelface and Pierre.
I am not sure if I loved them
because I treasured their humans
or if I treasured the humans
because they belonged to the cats.
Angelface would front my legs boldly
then bounce into my lap
where he liked to stay.
Pierre would explore, then rub,
suggesting but not asking
for pats.
Petting, pats:
Pierre’s human made the verb
into a related noun.
“Wussy” is what his human
styled Angelface.
He wasn’t cowardly,
but didn’t trouble
neighboring cats,
preferring, instead, to claim
food and comfort
without competing.
It is the way they both moved-
not like tigers,
more like small trees,
playing out the small shivers
that moved their heads
like friends of light winds-
that fastened me
to their cat lives
and undid me
in their presence.
I could do no more
than watch, bring food
provide pats
and offer up human
nonsense words
which in some chemistry
of irony
translated
into what we all navigated
in our disparate brain and sound systems
into love.
And, like Spock
in the episode
which found him climbing a tree
and touching the face
of a human who loved him,
I made the steps toward
translating, just for a moment,
the rush of pleasure
their presences gave,
to happy.
Muse #1: The Tiger
Frannie Z
Sometimes he brings ecstasy:
his fur ripples when we touch,
and his eyes on fire flash,
but do not menace.
Sometimes he pounces,
and I must dodge his claws
and run.
Sometimes his feet
surf high ground
as if it’s water,
hills barely touched
by his flight.
Yet I, privileged to watch,
feel as if I’m borne away
by speed and time
and he, the one who bolts,
seems motionless,
fenced off by the thick grass
of a savannah.
Heads cocked and raised,
we both sniff hot, dry air,
our eyes leaping, questing
burning.
Watching.