Ella, the cat, on the ledge, on the edge of discovery. Her eyes follow an uncharacteristic
helicopter till it flies out of the window frame. A matter of prepositions: or the novel
proposition that what remains outside of direct perception is a lure of sorts. See the turn
of head, the arched neck, the quivering body of the small cat. Her hunt for what can’t be
seen or known. I love what’s off the edge of the page. It leads somewhere—Now the
helicopter gone, now the empty grey sky. The quivering persists till late in the day.
—————
Ruth Danon’s fourth book, Turn Up the Heat, is forthcoming from Nirala Publications in 2023. She is the author of three other books of poetry: Triangulation from A Known Point (North Star Line, 1990), Limitless Tiny Boat (BlazeVOX, 2016), and Word Has It (Nirala, 2018.) She has published widely in the United States and abroad. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2002, Resist Much, Obey Little, (2017), Stronger Than Fear: Poems of Empowerment, Compassion, and Social Justice (2022) and will appear in the Poetry is Bread Anthology to be published by Nirala Series in 2023. She is founder of Live Writing: A Project for the Reading, Writing and Performance of Poetry. She teaches through Live Writing and for New York Writers Workshop. Since retiring from New York University in 2017 she has lived in Beacon, New York, with her husband, the painter Gary Buckendorf, and their two magnificent cats, Ella and Gizmo.