When I was a child, I collected cats
not in the crazy cat lady fashion
but just enough to drive my mom
bonkers.
Nights when tomcats yowled after dark
I interrupted their loud arguments
and choosing the smallest cat I saw
picked him up.
Walking home from town with friends
a cat was stuck in a drainage pipe
rear-end visible, I pulled him out
took him home.
Behind the post office where I played
in the maintenance access was a cat
I don’t recall how he got out
but he was mine.
Midnight, Joe, Red, Annabelle,
I’ll never know what happened to them
they never came home, or we moved away
such was life.
There was one cat my mother liked
Tom-Tom chose to stay when we moved
she called and called his name that day
tears in my eyes.
In my sister’s car, we drove away.
Mona Mehas (she/her) writes poetry and prose from the perspective of a retired disabled teacher in Indiana USA. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared in over 70 journals, anthologies, and online museums including Paddler Press Trip Log and IHRAM Literary magazine. Her poetry chapbooks, Questions I Didn’t Know I’d Asked and Hand-Me-Downs are available on Amazon. Two of Mona’s poems received first place honors in the 2023 Poetry Society of Indiana Fall contest. Mona is Editor-in-Chief of Cicada Song Press and 2nd VP for Poetry Society of Indiana. She is searching for a home for her first novel and working on a novel in verse.