Barefoot on my daughter’s front porch

Tired and hungry from the night

Mustapha whines at the back porch screen.

It is my daughter’s house so I won’t let him in

I want to listen to birds and sip my coffee quietly

before the sun and grand kids rise.

I tell him to hush, go somewhere else.

He continues his mewling

high pitch to low pitch and back again

My granddaughter loves her cat; I don’t.

I think of Saturday morning cartons

where a cat yowls on a fence

and someone throws a shoe.

Persistence is admirable in a child learning a task,

but a cat on the outside of a screen

wanting to come inside – is not.

An unusual bird call in the woods reminds me

of a junior high school friend who sat in the back

and laughed every time a teacher disciplined me.

I hated whiny teachers who had me sit in front.

They understood alphabetical order

but not a metaphor or an algebraic equation,

even when it was in bold print in the teacher’s guide.

They never talked with Emily in a daydream

or had numbers whisper answers in their ear.

Mustapha yowls at the screen door

again and again and again – maybe he knows

at my daughter’s house shoes are left at the front door.

6-13-20