The Showbear Family Circus

House Cat Pantoum

Melissa C. Johnson

House Cat Pantoum

In the window, I watch and sit.

Birds light and peck the ground.

Into the air, they dart and flit.

I meow and make no sound.

Birds light and peck around.

Bumping the glass and twitching my tail

I meow and make no sound.

Such slender necks, weak and frail.

I bump the glass and twitch my tail,

drool for robin, wren, and jay;

such slender necks, so weak and frail.

I know no god; I do not pray.

I drool for finch, wren, and jay;

outside they dart and feint.

I know no god; I do not pray.

By the door, I watch and sit.

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Melissa C. Johnson

Melissa C. Johnson is Professor and Chair of the Department of Focused Inquiry in the University College of Virginia Commonwealth University. Previously, Her work has been published in Borderlands, Waccamaw, Kakalak, The Connecticut Review, Farmer’s Market, The Potomac Review, The Cortland Review, NELLE, Green Briar Review, and other journals. Her chapbook, “Looking Twice at the World” was a winner in the 2007 South Carolina Poetry Initiative Chapbook Contest and was published by Stepping Stones Press at the University of South Carolina in 2008. A second chapbook, “Cancer Voodoo,” is forthcoming from Diode Editions in 2021.

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