Of What We Do Not Name

I do not know this world entire⁠—

but my cat, pacing through the dim,

deciphers secrets curled in the folds of wind,

hears the tick of a beetle in the dust,

marks shadows that even dusk forgets.

She listens to the hush

between a radiator’s exhale

and the creak of floorboards’ slow settling⁠—

the quiet syntax

of a house falling asleep.

The sun, in its final stretch,

threads gold through the torn lace

of maple leaves,

dressing the dying in something divine.

Dusk does not introduce itself,

It arrives like a guest we never really know

but welcome anyway,

and my cat does not flinch.

She drapes herself along the sill,

a silhouette of watching,

the faintest curl in her tail

suggesting she knows something

she won’t tell.

The porch lamp flickers into shape⁠—

a blue haze, a beckoning

for the stray passerby,

For the moth brushing its wing

against the glass,

for the echo nesting in the stairwell,

for the owl’s silent wing,

for the cat⁠—waiting⁠—

poised⁠—

at the cusp

of everything

we do not name.

I am a queer South-Asian writer and researcher from NYC. I write poetry as a way to give voice to thoughts that resist easy articulation.