Catherine M Thompson: Cat's Cupboard

Choreopoem Parts I and II 

Published in Scarlet Thistles, A Canadian Anthology of Poetry, 2014 

 © Catherine M Thompson 

 

Part I: Alienation

Separate 

Apartness 

Separate 

Apartness 

There is no end to this apartness that I feel 

To touch 

to touch is not to make the union real 

I am surrounded by a wall 

a waxen sheath 

Unrelenting glassy muscles seal me to the core 

To verbalize 

to speak 

does not break through 

Fragmented whispers spring from what is true 

Sometimes I feel that only with my eyes 

do I 

make contact with the world 

The rest of me 

dissolving 

invisible 

transparency 

unseen 

a ruthless shield 

(I pass like a shadow through the edge of other lives) 

 

Part II My Father’s Daughters

FATHER!!! 

It is your seed has sprung in us 

a wild streak deep and passionate 

that conjures us strange fantasies 

and nurtures dark 

DESIRE!!! 

And so we choose men passionless 

to harness us and fasten us 

down hard 

so as to furnish us with 

civilized facade