Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Archive Selection--By Kelley White--United States--Originally Published April 27, 2017

There is a problem on our block

The old woman
who drives the gold 1963 Ford Falcon
found a litter of kittens in her hosta bushes.
The mother moved the kittens
three times, first to the empty dog house,
where the woman had laid a carpet remnant,
then to a hole she had dug near the stone fence,
then to somewhere quite unknown.
Kids found the mother
dead, run-over in the street.
Miss Emma has all the unemployed men
in the neighborhood out searching.
They are climbing ladders
and crawling under porches.
They are opening broken doors
and shining lights into abandoned houses.
Everyone is listening very very carefully.
She has me searching too.

Pediatrician Kelley White worked in inner city Philadelphia and now works in rural New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in journals including Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA. Her most recent books are Toxic Environment (Boston Poet Press) and Two Birds in Flame (Beech River Books.) She received a 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant.

3 comments:

  1. Very lovely Kelley, nice to see your work here again.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was touched by this poem. First the tragedy what happened to the mother cat, then the solidarity of the neigborhood taking care of the kittens. I'm happy to see your poem published again, Kelley.

    Best wishes,
    Inge

    ReplyDelete