For My Cats Gaspara & Alfonsina

^{after Gaspara Stampa and Alfonsina Storni}

get up, sister, when dawn
calls to daybreak 
reborn; 
               mother me dawn-like, 
entangled in daisy;  
mountain my mouth 
with mother-of-pearl;
touch the wet earth;
               have me lightly, 
and not lonely, in grape leaves;

       in that extreme hour 
(when God shall forgive you),
drink from stones of frost 
               and foam me 
               a trembling corolla;
               
now I must lie reclined
and speak with the birds;

sister my sinews,
bring me wineglasses of miracles;
                your haughty flesh 
like water,

your proud skeleton
calling all 
the vanished names of the wind

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“Given the fact that my cats were named after Alfonsina Storni and Gaspara Stampa, I decided that it would be a fitting tribute to my animal companions to write a piece that remixes the poetry of their namesakes. My collage poem draws on words from Storni’s ‘You Want Me White’ (translated from the Spanish by Jesse Nathan and Daagya Dick) and Stampa’s sonnet ‘She Questions What Comfort Is Left to Her’ (translated from the Italian by George Fleming). The poem dramatizes Gaspara addressing her sister.”
—Michael Leong