Fortune, Santa Monica
The cats say I’m going to meet a man. Their fur rubs the fur of their jackets, purple and red, Edwardian. The man too will have dark hair and bright night eyes. They give it up all night for a dollar under the trees that grow round white lights among their leaves. The short-skirted girl: a baby. Premature and colicky, her hands flit in her hair. We get what we want. Her man: calamity at work, narrowly averted. The cats rock on their paws, claw tips gently clicking. We all desiderate: the tender pink inside their mouths, the tongue that rubs and burns.
Jennifer Gravley makes her way in Columbia, Missouri. Recent work can be found online in The Dirty Napkin, Boston Literary Review, 400 Words, and Six Sentences. (jygravley@gmail.com)