Cathy Porter’s poetry has appeared in Plainsongs, Homestead Review, California Quarterly, Hubbub, Cottonwood, Comstock Review, and various other journals. She has two chapbooks available from Finishing Line Press: A Life In The Day (2012), and Dust And Angels (2014). 16 Days is her second chapbook published by Dancing Girl Press: Exit Songs was published in 2016. Cathy is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and serves as a special editor for the journal Fine Lines in Omaha, NE, where she lives with her husband Lenny and their dog Marley, and cats Cody and Mini.
THE LIGHT
Is it fair to ask you to come along
in all this darkness, as wind and
rain pounds at the door? These are
the days that drag, pull down
the shades and hide the bodies.
The nights are cold and messy --
we dance in awkward motion,
but you sneak a feel when my
guard is down. I answer the phone,
catch myself laughing at old sitcoms.
There is no subplot – we rise together
for morning walks that leave me
breathless, waiting for daylight to
break through the clouds. Is it too
early to fall in line – to comfort
the hours that nobody wants?