Siham Karami’s Feline Nativity

Wildlings, it takes the heart of an animal. When we saw this beautiful combination of words and images from Siham Karami it seemed like such a perfect fit! Enjoy Feline Nativity!

Feline Nativity

Her paws much too small for this, I’m worried
thinking baby sweetie pie her pink claws
retract, she spreads her body widening her eyes
like a question mark into mine, not on the kitchen floor

where we had gathered scraps of paper into a nest
but here in this towel-lined box on a chair & I’m holding her
talking her through it don’t worry sweetie little pie
you’ll love your tiny squeakies & I remember

the terror of birthing, the mountain I am, opening
forever, an inevitable unleashing, irreversible,
& every womb is a mountain—we all must break free—
I know she can feel it change everything

but now I think it’s time, the stirring
a dread, the moment’s force, her eyes pleading—
Keep going little sweetie & somehow
I leave it to her, the small grey cylinder she licks

strenuously, eats the afterbirth, nesting
toward a gathering force of wet beings
as mysterious to her as she to them,
her body urged & pressed by waves of more—

six minuscule beings, one stillborn, one by one,
each floating wisp between raw flesh & shadow—
she wails & moans, pushes through the pulling noon—
softly submitting to the lightning as it blooms.