Umwelt

by Amanda Quaid

I click-click the burner—

it startles you from behind

the coffee pot. You freeze,

lily-pink paw on the cord,

belly white as goose down,

bubble eyes on me

like one-way mirrors,

whiskers like hands, sensing

signals undetectable to me.

I’ve been told you sing.

Alas, the ear grows to hear

just what it must to survive:

thunder, the tiger’s tread,

subtle shifts in a man’s

tone of voice they say a woman

can sense during pregnancy.

You can hear me though

I can’t hear you, just as I am deaf

to the fruit fly’s love serenade,

the chatter of bats, and water

rushing through the violet’s veins.