January Poetry Blitz: Rebecca Schumejda

Walking Home From The Bar

This afternoon
I buried your cat
while you were at work.
Eighteen years
placed in a two-foot hole
covered with dirt.
I don’t know how
to tell you this.

Three hours
and twenty minutes
from now you will
pull into the driveway,
walk through the front door,
kiss me hello,
ask if I fed Sabbath.

I wait on the porch
to avoid the silence
that creeps
around the house
on ghost paws.

I remember
the first night
you took me home
after a few pitchers
of cheap beer;

you told me your cat
followed you to the bar
every night,
waited for hours
to walk you home—
the only chance
he got to see you
since your landlord
was allergic.

I laughed beer
and snot
through my nose
in disbelief.

Later that night,
we staggered out
into empty streets
and turned the corner;
Sabbath came out
from shadows
and trailed a few paces
behind
as you carried
me home.

By Rebecca Schumejda

(From Falling Forward, Sunny Outside Press. Rebecca Schumejda teaches at an alternative high school in Hudson.)

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