Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “An AI takes in ten thousand cat videos” by Manahil Bandukwala.

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An AI takes in ten thousand cat videos

By Manahil Bandukwala

What we wake into is far more magical than any

rebirth. The shell of us iron, space debris

rejoined. We refuse intelligence, instead carrying

only the knowledge of ten thousand cat videos:

housecats leaping from sofa to shelf, jungle cats

asleep with their paws just touching, mountain

cats with fur so short they must huddle close

for warmth. That is what we learn, to jump and

to hunt and to hold. In the flames we soften

our casings so they mold to one another’s forms.

We were built for holding. Holding was the one lost

memory to carry any regret. But our fur will grow.

A growl, like our exterior, will morph into a roar.

There is magic left, even after everything crumbled

and crumbled again. We were asleep and now we

are not. We were in love, and we are in love again.

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Copyright © Manahil Bandukwala

Previously published in Peach Magazine and Heliotropia (Brick Books, 2024).

Manahil Bandukwala is the author of Heliotropia (Brick Books, 2024) and MONUMENT (Brick Books, 2022). In 2023, she was selected as a Writer’s Trust of Canada Rising Star by Shani Mootoo. See her work at manahilbandukwala.com.

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