Dreamer: Girl and House Cat, by Taunja Thomson

Illustration from Alice in Wonderland, by Tove Jannson (Finland). 1959.

Dreamer:  Girl and House Cat

Girl and house cat walk side by side
he as tall as she
among lily-flowered tulips
the colour of words
like snap    sizzle    slash 
and pointed in all directions
like ninja stars
their centres open to twilight.
Around heads of girl and cat
bats tumble in air 
pierce remaining light
with wing bones and weave
unseen skeins on sky.
Pines in the distance serve 
as green-black petrified flames
soon to be consumed
by the finality of night.
Girl and house cat converse
in this sea of tulip    bat     pine
silently    silently
so as not to wake 
the dreamer.

​Taunja Thomson

Taunja Thomson’s poetry has most recently appeared in Claudius Speaks and Pink Panther Magazine.  Three of her poems have been nominated for Pushcart Awards: “Seahorse and Moon” in 2005, “I Walked Out in January” in 2016, and “Strum and Lull” in 2018.  She has co-authored a chapbook of ekphrastic poetry entitled Frame and Mount the Sky that was published in 2017, and her chapbook Strum and Lull placed as a semi-finalist in Golden Walkman’s chapbook competition (2017).  She has a writer’s page athttps://www.facebook.com/TaunjaThomsonWriter.