I See

the cats playing with a rose fallen
from a wreath: a stiff silvery stem

topped by a dark pink ball.
How charmingly they bat the rose,

sniffing it with glee, and that's what
makes me bend, and see that it's really

the long dried tail and entrails of a rat.
I laugh: If rose & rat are not so far

apart, then what can't be mistaken
for something that it's not?

The turn's a way of telling me
to make each breath a self-revision.

Copyright © 2002 Natasha Sajé All rights reserved
from The Belot Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission