Читать книгу Planted by the Signs - Misty Skaggs - Страница 11

Wet Dew

My place is five fifteen

in the morning

in a plastic lawn chair.

The kind you buy

four for twenty

at the Dollar General.

Flecks of red spray paint

cling to my skin.

The tortoiseshell cat is satisfied

to sleep in the cradle of my legs,

crossed ankle to knee

like a man.

She’s making biscuits.

Needlepoint pricks

of practiced country cat claws

kneading my pale, doughy flesh.

The stray shepherd,

one eye sky blue and

the other mud brown,

is never satisfied.

But he missed me

when I ventured off the Ridge

and into town.

So he sits

as patient as he can manage

and I scratch his muzzle

and listen to the knock

of his tail on loose, front-porch

floorboards.

We sit in silence.

Except for the thump and the purr.

Except for the cardinal

screaming

“Wet dew! Wet dew!”

one last time

before the light breaks

the whole holler.