Electronic Counts, Too!
On Monday, April 9th, my poem, The Cat Lady is to be featured on Grassroots Bookstore's Poem-A-Day e-mail and web site, their offering for National Poetry Month. I was pleased because the project editor liked its truth-telling and, given the subject matter, that came as a surprise.
The Cat Lady
The woman next door says she’s clairvoyant.
She hasn’t had a night’s peace in years.
You want to ask her who it was
who found his body,
how long he was left hanging
but you stare instead
beyond to the leaf pile under the tree.
She fiddles with her buttons. You could
tarry for hours and still not be privy to where
his ashes were scattered or who got to keep the cars.
Time to assemble your gratitude and move on.
As if proxy for revelations, she offers
a painted cat she pulls from her pocket.
Once his, she says, brushing away lint.
She’ll go back into her house,
spoon food onto saucers for the cats,
nameless because they come and they go,
something she’s already told you,
something you already know.
