The Inbox
I check again.
This time there are three emails,
one telling me how much
happier I will be when I am tan,
another urging me to reconnect
with former classmates
who now have strange sounding names,
the last reminds me
of my son’s birthday tomorrow.
From outside the cat scratches
at the door, little carpetbagger,
rug-pisser I found sleeping under my tire
one morning before it was too late.
Curled up on herself and dark
as charcoal, at first she appeared
as an oil stain.
She knows I am somewhere
inside the quiet hum of empty house
amid the primary colors of balloons,
only blues and greens to her.
Maybe she wonders why I sit for so long
facing the wall, or why the sounds of the TV
put me to sleep at night.
Mostly she is waiting for me to let her in,
to love her.
--Leigh Anne Hornfeldt
