by Sandra Kolankiewicz

We all missed her afterwards, even my
dad though she once pissed in his shoes.
That was after the baby. The cat was
angry, just like my Memaw who never
visited again after the first time though
when she was here the cat slept wrapped
around her head with pillows. Every
morning for a week we tip toed beside
the extra mattress in the living room till
she woke and smoked. ‘Don’t talk to me
until I’ve had a Marlboro,’ she said.
After the cat jumped into the crib a third
time, so much wet yellow spreading out
to the edge of the sheet, as if she’d been
saving it, my dad drove out in the county
to toss her at a diary farm. Still, my
mother kept looking out the back door
when it snowed, especially after my
brother got sick. She cranked and
cranked that swinging seat or paced
the halls with him while he wailed.
Every day we listened to that sound he
made, like a whining rock she carried
room to room, until the snow rose above
the roof, turned to rain, and he was gone.

Sandra Kolankiewicz’s poems and stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Mississippi Review, Gargoyle, Rhino, New Plains Literary Review, Solo Novo, Bellingham Review, Chaffey Review, The Cortland Review, Monkeybicycle, Shark Reef, Louisville Review, Oxford Review, Atticus, Inertia, and Psychic Meatloaf. Her work “Turning Inside Out” won the Black River Chapbook Competition. Blue Eyes Don’t Cry won the Hackney Award for the Novel.