Cat on Fire

Nothing today.
Nothing yesterday.

This lonely room steals my words,
disrupts the muse.
I can neither feel nor heal
when the ghost of him hunkers down.
The cat chews on my computer cords.
Will she light up and catch on fire?
Psycho is an apt name for her.
She seeks love but when petted
bites you to the bone.
We are rivals in the pain we inflict.

One long sentence.
That is all I have this morning.

It is mid-December and
the year of writing dangerously
is almost over.
Soon I will cull them -
the poems and short stories -
one a day for 300 days.
Shine up a few,
shred and incinerate the others.
Rid the files of all misshapen words.
Leave this wretched year behind.

Just Another Dementia Day

I stand on the upper deck
to watch the storm approach - the blue afternoon
running for its life as gray envelopes the sky.
Rain erupts and thunder seizes my heart
as I move back into our house.
A solar home, windows are the east walls.
“The better to see you,” says the witch of the storm.
Gale force gusts coming our way,
the indiscriminate side of Mother Nature.
Wind spins, the pines shudder, and the oaks bend.
Inside the TV sputters everything about the weather.
The weather radio turns on,
a shrill alert beeping between updates.
The regular programming is disrupted.
The weatherman lives for this,
calmly reporting the obvious.
A local storm bearing down…now.
If you are in the area, seek cover.
The area in red is moving quickly, past the lake.
We are in the path of the storm.
I am alone with my man, so vulnerable
in his hospital bed – immovable, unable to walk or talk.
Barometric pressure drops and I am dizzy.
Our wall of windows, so lovely on a sunny day,
terrifying now as the wind shows off – flailing away.
Our woods just outside are a war zone, limbs cracking and whistling.
Squirrel nests detach and sail by. Then comes the hurling rain.
I have no better game plan than to cover him with my body,
pulling a rug over us and waiting for it to pass,
praying the windows hold.
I look into his curious eyes, so beautifully blue and calm.
And deep inside his quiet mind, must he wonder,
“What is she up to now?”

Jane Zenger is a retired teacher and writer who lives in Blythewood, SC.  She has a BA in English literature and a Ph.D. in Reading/ Language and Literacy. She studied poetry and creative writing with the late James Dickey and her work first appeared in his book, From the Green Horseshoe: Poems by the Students of James Dickey.  Her published research, Thirteen Poets, chronicled poets living and writing in South Carolina from 1975-1985. Jane was the poetry editor for Auntie Bellum; the first feminist magazine published in South Carolina.  She also edited The Spotlight, a quarterly journal dedicated to at risk youth, teen pregnancy and dropout prevention. Recent poems have been published in Fall Lines Magazine: A Literary Convergence, Volumes IV. Several other poems have been accepted for the upcoming 2021-22 editions. 

Jane’s first volume of poetry Night Bloomer, is scheduled to be published in early 2022 by Muddy Ford Press and reveals her fascination with traveling, finding love and exploring the natural world outside her back door.