In middle America — a small earth tremor,
not enough to scare the cat,
the cat felt it, and it told the mice
who lived in the walls.
"It wasn’t us", they said.
A mess on my desk;
the glass inkpot has toppled,
has spilled deep blue ink
on a sheet of white paper
printing upon it a smudging form,
— moth shaped,
and in the middle
a human figure– a man-moth.
I thought of ripple effects,
how all things run to the middle
when danger threatens.
I thought of Rorschach cards
and the anatomy of meaning.
Across the mid-point of the rug
the cat has fallen asleep.
The ink-image
tries to weakly crawls away,
its wet wings drooping.
I gently nudge it back to the middle,
eventually the ink dries and stiffens.
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