by Shane Chergosky
You never let me forget this is our religion: toast—coiled clover honey
sunk, marrow now for pumpernickel fjords.
Slow, gradual storms of java moving across our foreheads.
I sit beside the kitchen window like all our neighbors do
waiting for Northern Flickers to return to the feeder, my palms open
somewhere between offering and appeal.
The heater chugs. Your bony orbits, eyes almost
accessible in the glass. the orchid at the center of the table, its feeble bloom.
It cannot touch our privacy.
::
Shane Chergosky is a language artist and musician based in Washington, D.C. His poems have appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly, The Adirondack Review, and a handful of others. He was born in Minnesota where he was raised on stuffed cabbage and heavy metal.
Image: “… The domestic cat; bird killer, mouser and destroyer of wild life; means of utilizing and controlling it.” Edward Howe Forbush. Wikimedia Commons.
ID: A leashed cat in front of a white house. Black and white photograph.
Psaltery & Lyre 