By: Wylie Strout

A beaver with his shoulders slouched
sits on my couch
while a cat paws its way.

I rose in a daze with a bird in the cupboard.

Back up.

Summoning the beaver with little effect.

Never had this animal had a calling.

Slowly he shuffles while I motion to the sound.

The bird’s crowing of entrapment.

This bird making noise in the room that is unoccupied; always unoccupied.

The animal rises off his tiny back paws and begins his quest; the beaver drifts into the kitchen in search of a thing called a bird.

Listening. I find myself in the bedroom closet. Listening.

The cat comes in limping on three legs with the beaver following.

The missing paw sticks out of the misguided beaver’s pucker.

Blood. No, I don’t remember blood.

Outside. I arrive outside. The bird is missing.

I look back through the kitchen glass.
No more thumping.
No more swirl of the wings of this caged soul.

On a cloud a skip away the nightmare is nowhere.
The bird carries the beaver.
The cat isn’t here.

No need to look for a cat I didn’t see.

Shadows of sound and vision.

I am back hearing the cupboard.

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Wylie is a California based writer who enjoys art, film, theater and music. She enjoys writing fiction including short stories and film screenplays. She is a practicing attorney. Other work includes the yet produced feature film “With a Child’s Heart” and the published fictional short story “Petunia, Under The Sun.”