/jay brecker

Self-Portrait As Mary Ruefle’s Kitten

—after On Sentimentality “… if we fail to be moved by the kitten, something is terribly wrong.”

what to do cat around nothing not a thing just be a causeless emotion this hummingbird rumble alive in poetry balled in a lap or the slop of kibble or prose beyond the page oscillates across the floor like a ruffle now & then then back again lapping like a tongue rueful tastes sweetness yet cannot secrete it or the eye sees beauty rough compressed full of play tries to sustain it only to reduce it

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Jay Brecker works and writes in southern California. His poems are forthcoming or have appeared in Permafrost, Lily Poetry Review, Ocean State Review, The Inflectionist Review, South 85 Journal, I-70 Review, RHINO Poetry, and elsewhere. His manuscript, A Ceiling is a Wall Seeking, was a semi-finalist for the 2020 Wheeler Prize for Poetry.