Dreams of an Old Barn Cat
She sleeps in the hay
as if it remembers her kittenhood—
tucked in the crook of forgotten tools,
curled like a question
no one ever asked.
Her ears twitch
at echoes that aren’t here anymore—
ghosts of mice
long turned to dust,
the rustle of straw when no one is near.
In her dreams,
she is still the queen
of rafters and moonlight.
Soft-footed sovereign
walking the beam
between two worlds:
one warm with milk,
one sharp with frost.
She remembers the red fox,
the one she never chased—
only watched,
each respecting the silence
in the other.
She dreams of storms
she outwaited,
and summer nights
where the barn pulsed
with breath and heat,
and stars slipped in
through broken panels
like spilled sugar.
Now her bones creak
with every sunrise,
but in sleep
she moves like mist,
like memory—
faster than light,
lighter than time.
She dreams not of youth,
but of knowing.
Of how to disappear
just enough
to be left alone,
but not forgotten.
And when the wind
shakes the siding
or a far-off owl
calls her name,
she does not wake.
She already knows
what’s out there.
She already knows
how to return.
