Poetry
The Snow Cat
Ann McGarrell
Now new snow blurs the tracks
I've barely read:
Squirrel and deer: the alko lady's
polydactyl cat, each print a seven-petalled flower.
By the first poplars they're all going, gone.
Kneedeep in anything is shit.
Turn back. It's time.
The scraps of fur and bone
I saw last spring
are scattered deep by now,
are not
at all.
I plunge back up the hill,
no good at country, winter, death;
knowing the bears are right:
curl silently to sleep,
wear a white wreath of breath
but in my throat
the dead cat spreads her claws.