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The lady who kept her lover’s
used Trojans in a shoe box,
anglers in a dirt-filled aquarium,
to feed her four hens
along with their own eggshells—
the lady with the toy poodle
always sniffing the cat’s ass,
a first edition Yeats on the shelf—
dreamed she lived by the sea,
on the outskirts of some hyperborean
domain, dusky forests deep with pine.
Outside the French patio doors,
puffins paced along the rocks,
till darkness descended like a shroud,
and Christ returned, ruffling feathers,
turning rock to bread, sea to blood,
the clouds bright.  And she writhed
like the earthworms, clucked at the fowl,
understood dogs will be dogs,
sensed some luck in the Atlantic gales.
And the sky rolled back like a scroll . . .

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Anna Cates is a graduate of Indiana State University (M.A. English and Ph.D. Curriculum & Instruction/English) and National University (M.F.A. Creative Writing). Her first collections of poetry and fiction, The Meaning of Life and The Frog King, were published by Cyberwit Press, and her second poetry collection, The Darkroom, by Prolific Press. She lives in Ohio with her two beautiful kitties and teaches education and English online, including graduate courses in creative writing.

Show Anna some love via PayPal at anna.cates(at)gmail(dot)com.