Aby Ray
Gata, Gáta, Gattin
The calico cat that keeps slipping through
property lines of peripheral vision
is a moving lyric I can’t quite remember
and may have never really known.
Did I imagine her?
We lived an intimate lifetime
tactile, loving, deep
with moments of rejection, longing
feared loss, and resolution.
All in my mind? I could tell you
how she moves and stretches; which spots,
when touched, make her melt and purr.
She allows herself to belong to someone.
Not to me.
Whispered lovesong just out of perception,
fleeting presence just out of my sights
she is here (real or pleasant delusion?)
near enough just to keep me in hers.
Notes:
gáta - Old Norse for riddle or verbal puzzle
γάτα (gáta) - Greek for female cat
gata - Portuguese for f. cat, (sl.) very beautiful woman
Gattin - German for wife
Wished-For Not-My-Baby
I did not write poems when you lived here,
with us, in me. I felt them
too vividly: kicks and my heartbeat
the meter, throb-thrumming of bloodflow
increasing in volume each day.
Some stanzas rhymed, echoed past verses:
the aches, awkwardness and the moods;
dance break parties for just-us-two;
belly kisses bestowed by my youngest,
lisping whispers “I’ll be your best friend.”
Some imagery now is indelible:
plague-length visits at dusk on my porch;
your dads’ hands on my skin, reverential;
grandma’s gift bags of lotions and robes
tribute, her frankincense, myrrh.
Love ran down masked cheeks, overflowing.
Then waves brought you out and your cries
were crescendo, release, resolution.
New life resting warm on my body,
small face searching mine, but this time
framed by your fathers’ embrace,
joy and tears, all that fierce tense excitement
remains. Theirs, not mine.
I relaxed.
And now I can write you this poem.
Aby Ray is a dual German/US citizen queer mom, surrogate, advocate, and weirdo who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area on poetry ‘zines and blackberries right off the bramble. She stuck around, got a day job and some dependents, and keeps trying to find the good life and the right words. Her poems have been published in Moist Poetry Journal, and on lampposts around her neighborhood. She feels limerick battles should be used to settle disputes more often.