Sweet Dreams by Jean Ryan

Because of backyard fledglings,
because of ferals and snakes and ticks,
I keep my cat inside, where his cupped ears are tuned
not to the scuttle of a mouse but to the lid of his cat food,
where his night vision leads him not through deep woods
but around a monotony of furniture,
where his claws and fangs and whiskers
are only ornamentation.
Each day he sits at the back door, tail flapping,
and studies through the terminus of glass
the squirrels he will never chase,
the birds he will never kill.

Which is why I love to watch him dream.
Stretched alongside me, I see his paws twitch,
his muzzle crimp, the fur on his spine lift up.
In sleep he breaks free of my world
and finds another, some marvelous labyrinth
where small warm beings tremble in burrows
and unknowing birds peck at the ground.
Like a ribbon he moves toward the smell
of meat, he can already taste the blood.
And waiting there too is a willing mate,
ready each time he nods off.

My house is where he shelters.
Sleep is where he lives.



Jean Ryan, a native Vermonter, lives in coastal Alabama. She has published two short story collections, Survival Skills and Lovers and Loners. She has also published a novel, Lost Sister, a book of nature essays, Strange Company, and a poetry collection, A Day Like This. https://jean-ryan.com/