You came to us
with your cataracted mother –
matching duo in a stippled
vertical lattice of black and grey
after a thunderstorm
in a swollen sodden summer
Ears bigger than ghosts
 big as wolves hearing the horizon
perched radar on a rail of a body
that has to fatten up to honor them

Rick you should see how he has
made the upside-down envy
gravity and how he asks questions
with a peek through laced leaves
He sleeps in a planted pot camouflaged
indigenous on our sun warmed patio
or in woolen knitted hollowed hole
He would have played with you
In a whirling game of fast
varsity gymnastics
he would have walked on your chest
and purred
In your last bed or your first

Pick up a stick with feathers
my brother, past the place
where the owl inhabits
night

He is a creature of freedom
as you are now, finally
from a boulder of debt and breathing
wait until she carves his face in a
pumpkin
when snow comes
falling with the last
mandarin maple
keep him safe
in those thickets
of cattails

– Roy Akiyamo