As I Anticipate My Lover Arriving in the Snow, I Make Up Some
Cat-Themed Lyrics to My Favorite Song
Lincoln, Nebraska
Flurries mixed with sleet turn the city white and slick. These things don’t
seem so nice when it’s almost as frozen in my house as it is outdoors. Give
it another hour, it will be a full-on snowstorm in here. Will Paul come to me
in this weather? I know I’m his sidepiece, but we have permission. Visions
of the two of us in bed make shivering in the cold worth it. To
keep me company, Trouble in Shangri-La plays on the stereo. I explain
to my growling cat who hates the cold more than I do that there
are warmer places we could live than a drafty duplex in South Bottoms, but none are
as cheap. Chubu’s unimpressed with my economy as he huddles under a blanket. No
quarter there. I sing along with Stevie Nicks and my cat begins to yowl. Doubts
creep in, as the snow picks up, about Paul getting here safely, about what I
am even doing, fooling around with Natalie’s fiancé. I peer outside, feel
the wet snow seer my face like a warning. No one braves the
streets, not even the snowplow, not even squirrels. The strain
of worry begins to build as I go back inside—I need to see him, of
course, need to feel his lips and hands on me, it’s been a week. But all
I can do is wait and see. The cat jumps in my lap as I settle on the sofa, and my
voice crescendos, “Every day I pet you/ Every day I feed you.” Chubu senses
something, his ears satelliting at a sound. It’s just my yearning
for Paul that makes me hope I will hear his heavy knock. I scoot over
toward the window, upsetting the cat, so I can glance outside and
check to see if my love comes up the walk. Chubu, in a huff, stalks over
to the half-working heating vent. No one appears. Back to waiting and hoping again.
A Golden Shovel After Stevie Nicks’ “Every Day”
(Trouble in Shangri-La, 2001)
Hallucination Suite
Beneath the toad, I find a fortune. Time wakes me up like a book.
Crawling on the earth, a snail gives me the stink eye. I have to laugh.
The fortune promises good news but warns me to keep an umbrella handy.
In my pocket are all the lies I told you, and a Kennedy half-dollar, blushing.
I do not mean to tell lies. They bake in the oven of my mouth before
I can bite them back. Sweet as almond paste in flaky croissant they emerge.
All that glitters keeps me awake at night, that and the whispering of gravestones.
Let me pluck a ghost from the ghost tree. It is ripe and cold as figs.
The love you gave to me, sulfuric and glittering. A disco ball. An abandoned park.
I keep an eye on my journal which writes itself. No one tell me any different.
Somehow I’m lost in the woods behind my house. Deer bones gnawed bare,
fox leavings. An owl perches in the vee of the birch limbs. A shot.
Losing oneself requires a talent I don’t have. Like the ability to speak Portuguese.
Or cook a perfect souffle. Or breakdance. But I try anyway. I lick danger’s feet.
I once had ninety cats. They spoke Portuguese and told me I’m fat. Você é gordo.
A warning echoes in the basilica of my ear. A thousand crates of spinach.
And what to make of all this? A turtle’s sudden jolt scatters lemon dreams.
A window breaks. I want to say I love you, but you’d know it’s another lie.
JC Reilly has work published or forthcoming from Tulane Review, Tar River Poetry, The Closed Eye Open, and Connecticut River Review. She lives in Marietta, GA with three cats, and is the editor of the Atlanta Review. Follow her on Bluesky @aishatonu.bsky.social or IG @jc.reilly.
January House Literary Journal 
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