by Lea Aschkenas
After that nighttime attack
that left him with a wound
to his left ear, an infection
only cured with an injection
and the dreaded cone
quickly discarded with
a trick of the claw,
he scrambled for shelter—
beneath the coffee table,
inside the kitchen cabinet,
wedged between blender
and rice cooker.
Even his favorite kibble
of pea and soy protein
could not coax him into daylight.
Evenings, he skidded across
the living room floor,
clawed the front door, frantic
to flee his invisible predator.
And then one morning,
months into his confinement,
he emerged from the dark
of the computer cabinet
like a rabbit materializing
from a magician’s hat.
He stretched in plain sight,
yawned, stepped through the cat door
back into the world.
Who knows how we shed fear
with no guarantee of safety,
disaster lurking so near?
I have no idea
how to parse unknown risk
to re-enter life as lived before
our own invisible predator.
I long
for the courage of the cat
who, so soon after his recovery,
ascended the neighbor’s narrow fence.
Perched so precariously,
yet, so at peace
with uncertainty.
Lea Aschkenas (www.leaaschkenas.com) lives in Northern California, and is the author of the memoir, Es Cuba: Life and Love on an Illegal Island. She teaches with California Poets in the Schools and works at a bilingual public library. Her poetry and prose have been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, Poets Reading the News, California Quarterly, and The Atlanta Review.
