QCE52B NIE Lit 2018

They should not have left him there alone,  Alone that is except for the cat.  He was only nine, not old enough  To be left alone in a basement flat,  Alone, that is, except for the cat.  A dog would have been a different thing,  A big gruff dog with slashing jaws,  But a cat with round eyes mad as gold,  Plump as a cushion with tucked-in paws---  Better have left him with a fair-sized rat!  But what they did was leave him with a cat.  He hated that cat; he watched it sit,  A buzzing machine of soft black stuff,  He sat and watched and he hated it,  Snug in its fur, hot blood in a muff,  And its mad gold stare and the way it sat  Crooning dark warmth: he loathed all that.  So he took Daddy's stick and he hit the cat.  Then quick as a sudden crack in glass  It hissed, black flash, to a hiding place  In the dust and dark beneath the couch,  And he followed the grin on his new-made face...

Your mother had nosebleeds as a child. There was no one to part the copper clouds of her hair, cool her temples with oil and music. Now she is the woman who walks through walls before your eyes. She wears quiet colours and sleeps with feral cats. Your mother is the woman who, from the corner of an eye, could be a long- stemmed tiger lily flaming against bricked-up sky. You are your mother’s son with those cat’s eyes made for dark evenings and lightless rooms. Your feral dreams frighten you. Sometimes, there is blood in your throat when you wake. Every now and then you slip through a wall and surprise yourself. Plain stone turns opaline, cries out in your hands. Early mornings, the house cannot hold you. The falling moon seizes your raw body, reminds you of your first, true shape. And perhaps you chose me because I, too, walk through walls; because you sensed me burning inside my tiresome skin long before you knew the shape of my hot, poemstruck hea...