Linda C. Straub

previously printed in
Cat Fancy September 1999

Kitten

He pauses like a semicolon,
lies down beside her
in a period of rest,
an apostrophe of possession.
The morning brings
question of sustenance,
exclamation of triumph;
then, the bath,
a series of tongued dashes
across silken fur.

first published here 6/15/02:

Spotless

Her paws poke through
the laundry basket;
furred handles wrap
around my arms.
Brighter than bleached whites,
softer than plush towels,
she lies neatly folded
upon clean clothes.

Linda C. Straub has been publishing poetry since January 1997. Her work (approximately 80 poems in 25 zines) has appeared in a
variety of zines, including Writer’s Journal, Cat Fancy, Parnassus Literary Journal, Poetry Motel, PoetryMagazine.com,
Harrisburg Review, Midwest Poetry Review,etc
***

Unbending Time

Last night
I saw what the Future was like
If Time bent
And let me slink
Into its folds.

I saw a man
Intransigent
Glacial
Glowering at me.
This iciness seeped

Into my bones.
This indifference to my pain.
He had taken me
To bandage a wound.
To provide comfort.

But my sacrifice
Lacked sincerity
And I heaved up
Words of perdition
As my soul

Slumped into submission.
I woke up
Smeared with the Present.
Drenched with sweat.
And grateful for the lineality

And irreversibility
Of Time.

It’s
It’s some biochemical calculus I’m stuck with.
Some squamous stoichiometry embedded in my brain.
This minefield I wade through.
This minerological colossus I pay obeissance to each day.

It’s there, lodged sinisterly somewhere I can’t see:
Inaccessible
Incalculable
Incandescent
Free

Asylum from Ash

“Tranquility is the old man”s milk.”

Thomas Jefferson

Dizzy for that nutrient, we load the car.
The whole world is a pair of jeans
in need of a needle and patch.
We boomerang for mint green hills
no differently than heads
with migraines duck the light.
I doubted red geraniums this icy spring
since nothing glows brighter than war.
Doubted they’d rise through carapace soil,
react and grow to warm syringes of rain.

In the navel of drought,
blue bowls of water promise us
asylum from the cloying ash.
It’s quiet here,
except for the chattering birds
discussing the size of a seed.
Bears with noses in a cooler
eating someone’s morning eggs.
Rowboats slice a shadow’s dress.
After the wool, finger the silk.

A few loose thunder clots abide
like moccasins that pad a trail.
Moons these days —
bright silver shillings
plow through smoke.
I doze at peace, under a tree,
awaken to sights of a deer,
its hooves so close I mistake them
for pairs of brand new shoes.

by Janet I. Buck