Unrestricted, vernal light

pours through bay windows’

oblique angles…

Alights in canary-yellow

flowers caught,

arranged

mid-flight at the breakfast

table’s center …

Light laps wide floorboards

of polished, honeyed oak;

wainscoted walls of ocher…

And, at last,

splashes up upon a board

in the corner of that low-

paneled wall that emits

(listen!)

a scritch-scratch-scritch

(behind, within)

of something trapped,

hidden,

concealed away

from such profuse display

of gilding…

The inset section trembles,

shivers, shifts, glides back

upon itself into the wall,

reveals a hollow space

that holds a child…

A child who, in turn, holds

a pale fluff of smallish kitten

(rabbit?)

snug against her sternum…

Who looks up, surprised,

to be rescued at long last,

released from confinement

(days, months, years?)

blinking darkness from

wide eyes.

— C.Birde, 4/22