Sanctuary

Because I cannot write a poem
about the cat that got dumped

from a moving car last spring,
cannot translate the moment

she froze in the street
as I ran across traffic, halted

the cars, saw she had peed
all over her white fur, a corpse

of a cat as I held her in my arms
for two blocks, freed her in the

confines of my filthy garage,
where she ran to the cavern

of the snowblower, the boilers
riggings, and shook for hours.

How the moment slowed itself
in urgency. How time and space

congealed into focused emergency.
I cannot find a way to articulate

the days turning to weeks, how she
crawled from the spaces that made

her feel safe to find my husband
open-palmed and offering a toy,

a treat. I do not feign to understand
the heart, how it finds its way

in this world to trust anyone,
the way it goes on beating until

suddenly it is released from its cage
like a small and tender thing onto gravel.

Alicia Hoffman is the author of three collections, most recently ANIMAL (Futurecycle Press). Her poems have been published in a variety of journals, including Thrush, Radar Poetry, Trampset, The Night Heron Barks, Tar River Poetry, The Penn Review, Glass: A Poetry Journal, One Art, and elsewhere.