Tachfyn’s Cats

by Myronn Hardy

The runt has barely one eye.
She stays in your hand unafraid of its
closing     the cruelty everywhere.
The cruelty she knows you know.
The liquid cruelty you trust everyday     you test.
The heaving     the brine     the starfish
it flings to sand. The women
it returns naked     bloated     dead.
Your fingers are stained
with mackerel tinned in oil.
Your cats are eating mackerel in front
of your door in the
city     behind the rage of water
professing to them     you.

Drink tea with the stranger who brings
walnuts     raw almonds.
Show him photographs of your father
when he was your age.
Show him photographs of the woman
you will live with     the house you will buy
in a beach town crowded with goats.
The stranger is obsessed with mirrors.
He thinks you are your father.
He is his father.
The mineral in your irises is the same
in that cat’s     gold     lithe.
You watch gold in the waves
with the stranger.   

Nothing is settled.
We live     then again     then.