Decoded

What is it about an armful

of animal presence

that makes you feel you could decode

a language that has always seemed

a little garbled, the basics

just out of reach,

something they forgot to include

in the school primer?

Home is this circumference

of arm, this sneaky impress of nose

against neck, this repose of fur.

Peace, an abandoned memory

of talon, a widening ripple of sleep in the eye,

an unbidden snore.

And for the rest,

the dictionary.