Cold Shining

A cat prowls above cast-down shadows. Under a nailed starlight yellow eyes gleam like far removed planets. Standing by my door looking up into the cold riveted stars I sense the remote clanking of casements and portals, the iron blinking of bygone lights. I take out the trash; an icy clapperclaw nips my bones, the hanging distance above me snares my breath. The cat’s eyes have closed, it has come back from the beyond to be pulsing and close, its purr as near to me now as the blood in my lips.