Feral
The kids drag that goddamn cat into the basement
during summer thunder gales whipping
plastic patio chairs across the yard the sky green
like an old bruise. The cat is feral, her fur a silver-gray
her belly swollen yowling for food. The kids
are yowling, too until I say she can stay.
Weeks later the kittens are born under the cellar steps
tiny and soft, a constant mewing.
They suck their mama dry, nursing until her eyes sink in
her ribs showing pink tongue panting
her hair falling out in tuffs until no one wants
to touch her no one wants to watch her sprit splitting.
One night, she finally limps out the backdoor
while I cook and clean and soothe the children
preparing for the next day’s work steel wool scraping
against cast iron humming myself
down to sinew and vein breathing
a sigh of relief that she’s gone.
I don’t know if that mama cat spends her nights
chasing sewer rats through back alleyways
or digging through dumpsters behind Tony’s Diner
or leaping under streetlamps pouncing on shadows
cast by the gloom. I don’t know if she remembers
the smell of us
or swoons under a stranger’s porch in the high sunlight
of August but I’d be lying if I say I’m not jealous.
Sometimes I think I hear her screeching under the full blue
shimmer of moonlight calling me into the damp air
of anywhere promising I could leave them
if I choose.
during summer thunder gales whipping
plastic patio chairs across the yard the sky green
like an old bruise. The cat is feral, her fur a silver-gray
her belly swollen yowling for food. The kids
are yowling, too until I say she can stay.
Weeks later the kittens are born under the cellar steps
tiny and soft, a constant mewing.
They suck their mama dry, nursing until her eyes sink in
her ribs showing pink tongue panting
her hair falling out in tuffs until no one wants
to touch her no one wants to watch her sprit splitting.
One night, she finally limps out the backdoor
while I cook and clean and soothe the children
preparing for the next day’s work steel wool scraping
against cast iron humming myself
down to sinew and vein breathing
a sigh of relief that she’s gone.
I don’t know if that mama cat spends her nights
chasing sewer rats through back alleyways
or digging through dumpsters behind Tony’s Diner
or leaping under streetlamps pouncing on shadows
cast by the gloom. I don’t know if she remembers
the smell of us
or swoons under a stranger’s porch in the high sunlight
of August but I’d be lying if I say I’m not jealous.
Sometimes I think I hear her screeching under the full blue
shimmer of moonlight calling me into the damp air
of anywhere promising I could leave them
if I choose.
September / October, 2022
Angela Gaito-Lagnese is the author of the poetry chapbook, Squalling (Main Street Rag, May 2021) and is currently at work on a full-length poetry book. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Nasty Women and Bad Hombres, Main Street Rag, Pittsburgh City Paper, OyeDrum, Angel City Review, Northern Appalachia Review, and other journals. Gaito-Lagnese has an MFA in fiction from the University of Pittsburgh and is a regular poetry Madwomen at Carlow University.
Art: Madge Evers. Close to the Sun. Mushroom spores on paper.