Dog Days--Escape
It was the web of deception,
the careful arrangement
of mirrors facing mirrors.
Threads
thicker than perception,
knotted beneath the floorboards
where no one bothers to look.
I am wrapped in it,
a fly that learned
the web has rhythms.
The games continue,
rules rewritten
before each move,
the whole ball of yarn
rolling wherever
someone else's hand decides.
Heat rises
from the bed of coals
I stepped onto
thinking it was a road.
She is the root,
or so they want me to believe,
holding the lattice together.
So I stop pulling.
A trapped animal
teaches the snare
nothing
by thrashing.
I blink slowly.
I purr on cue.
I chase the string
they expect me to chase.
I become
the cat they have already written.
Meanwhile,
I count the heartbeats
between their lies.
I learn
which doors are locked
only by habit.
I bury my tracks
in yesterday,
leave tomorrow
where no one thinks to sniff.
Time has always been
my secret scratching post.
I visit quiet hours,
the forgotten minutes
that fall behind clocks,
collecting keys
no one remembers making.
When they look,
I am sleeping
in a patch of afternoon sun.
When they don't,
I move centuries.
The web cannot catch
what refuses
to struggle against it.
Silk breaks
one patient strand
at a time.
And when the last thread
lets go,
there is no chase,
no triumph,
no dramatic goodbye.
Only an empty windowsill,
a drifting hair
caught in the light,
and the faint impression
that perhaps
the cat
never knew anything at all.
