Kate Feld

port

Listen, cat. Once I lived in the city and paid people to bring me things in boxes, paid people to put
me in boxes and bring me places. Now you pay in gestures so touching is no longer on point. Cold for
a cat lit on current and currency, cat transfigured by transactions, surface airs crackling with
occasion. A charged box waiting for a port connection, box inside a bag inside a room inside a
building. Nothing to fill a box with but inattention; intention that never hits home – that’s not where
it’s at. Ghost of a fingertip passes over the surface of this device. If your skin is too cold, it won’t
activate. Being all at sea and never coming into it is the old problem with a port. See, your cord is not
long enough, cat. The passcode your ma murmured low in your baby ear, in the dark still of port.
Listen, cat. You were supposed to remember it.

Kate Feld’s writing has appeared in publications including Hotel, The Stinging Fly and The Letters Page. She lives in Manchester, edits creative nonfiction journal The Real Story and lectures in Journalism at Salford University.