Every night, Juan Perea becomes
a cat. He inserts borrowed eyes
into sockets, and on the table,
rests his eyes in a saucer.
Assuming cat’s tail, body arch,
he tiptoes between houses.
He recites hexes burned
into memory
like cooked cat bones.
He delivers curses to neighbors—
worms poisoning food, mice growing
inside stomachs, the stealing
of a man’s beating heart
until the morning he returns home,
drops to his knees before
the upturned table, hungry dog
devouring his eyes.
200 New Mexico Poems 