Matt Dennison

The Ancients

O wild cat, flat on your back with
head on my arm, old-man belly
exposed and legs occasionally

twitching in their natural dreams
—(I see your yellowed teeth
and the gum of one missing,

our faces are so close—)
your serious claws knead the breast
of instinctive sky, past my book,

through the tree, beyond your masterful
display of the slippery art of surrender
and we, who understand such things,

are the ancients once more.

Matt Dennison is the author of Kind Surgery, from Urtica Press (Fr.) and Waiting for Better, from Main Street Rag Press. His work has appeared in Verse Daily, Rattle, Bayou Magazine, Redivider, Natural Bridge, The Spoon River Poetry Review and Cider Press Review, among others.