The TimeTraveling Cat

The delicate bones of a new cat,

as if they belonged to a too-thin ballerina,
one whose hunger is a “look”
for the teacher, rather than because
There isn’t enough food at home;
Or if she lives alone,
keeps her icebox empty on purpose,

meows at the door by opening her mouth,

pushing out air, but no sound.

So, I fill a bowl with some of my own cat’s food,

pour water into a small Japanese teacup
and watch her eat so fast she almost chokes.
She is not so thin she is ugly.
She is beautiful as Cairo at dawn three thousand years ago.
Her beauty is a stretched, but only gesso-ed canvas,
a piece of sun-bleached papyrus.

She is so thin that Egypt walks beneath paws.

Her whiskers measure pyramids without the use of cubits.
With the purity of freshly ground pigments, she moistens
her brushes with the River Nile and begins to paint
the mice she once kept from the Queen’s feet.