Epyrus

hey boy, I watch

                 you take the skyway

while I remain here on the ground

knowing that one day you just won’t come back

so until then…

my mother in the next room

watches videos of the island she left

as a child 25 years earlier

to make her home

somewhere else

she tells me that a lone cypress

tree still stands in the same

place she remembers it being

                        as a little girl

and I’m not sure if it’s

                       a miracle I smell or

those lilies of the valley

imbedded deep into the soft folds

of the woolen jumpers she always wears.

Tess climbs up onto my desk

to watch me work

                        and he calls her

                        ‘the perfect killer’

because she is so small & beautiful

                      and deftly quick & silent

but that is simply

the nature

of felines.