by Robbi Nester

What is that shining
beyond the branches
here and nowhere
everywhere at once
silver as a saucer filling
all the windows with cold light?

My shadow self
conjured out of air
lifts her paw as I
lift mine in warning
or salute. Her eyes
burn in the glass.
Her fur feels cold
raises no spark of scent.

Surely this room
the shocked books
on their shelves
exist only at night
and then only
halfway between
inside and out
in the wild light;
gilded by morning
this room is somewhere else.

I sheathe my claws
in the bright shroud
shed by the pane
shred it to fine floss
sit like a sphinx
in the very center
of my domain.

Something stirs
beneath the stove.

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Robbi Nester is the author of a chapbook, “Balance”, published by White Violet Press. She has published poetry in Qarrtsiluni, Victorian Violet Press, Inlandia, Floyd County Moonshine, and Caesura. Her reviews have been published in Switchback and The Hollins Critic. She has essays in two anthologies, “Easy to Love but Hard to Raise” and “Flashlight Memories.”