The Porch

by | Aug 11, 2020 | Fiction, Issue Sixteen

Those cats, they love that porch. They love the mosquito hum

                                                                        clothesline glow

                                                                        humid day of it.

They love the firefly wink

                        cricket song

                        little creatures scritching in the garden dark of it.

They love the smell of rain through porch screens, almost as much as a girl loves watching storms crackle over hills, every leaf a sequin flash. She can feel it on her skin, in her bones almost—a pop of atmosphere, the swollen afternoon air drained away, and an evening suddenly

                                                                                    weightless

                                                bright

            unmoored

                                                                                                          free.

                                                                                            cut

as if the whole world has just become a helium balloon

Those cats, they love that girl face in their fur, warm pressure against prowling dreams, fingertips lightly stroking velvet ears while a door slams, and a TV wails away in the house;

                                                the closed-in

                                                closed mind

                                                of the house.

Those cats, they know a girl’s dreams are like theirs—half-tame, half-wild—like running up a telephone pole without knowing how to climb down, or loving a comfort that is also a cage, or picking a day to pack a bag

                        and follow

                                                some thunder

                                                                                                elsewhere.

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