2025 Commended poem: 'arrival' by Jennifer Choi

arrival

i asked the cat that loves corners,
you weren’t born from the earth,
not green like the sprouts that tear through the ground,
not a fruit bursting from the tip of a branch,
you didn’t break out of an egg like a dinosaur.

how did you come to us?

did the leaves,

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        the leaves,

      the leaves,

fleeing from the dawn trees,
bring you along?

the cat, weighing the night on four paws,
you are a spring wrapped in white fur,
a bird that has shed its wings,
a hunter of sleep,
the one who separates love for the living from love for the dead,
the silence of three a.m.,

i asked the cat that loves corners,
what did you place on the crumpled sheets?

the end of summer,
fading heat,
the cold tail of the wind,
the newborn autumn’s jacket,
the names we used to have,
the distant sound of water,
the distant sound of footsteps,
these things.

your anxious happiness, watching me,
these things.

my cat answers with ventriloquism.

since we’ve arrived at the end of summer,
shall we sleep together?

when my cat closed its eyes,
the moonlight, the asters, the stones, & the sparrows
vanished
all at once.

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Dead Cat Poetry Prize - winners and commendees, 2025