after christopher smart
for i royal black sabah lil gallish gal flashed
my baby sphinx butt on may 1st weighin in
at 3 pounds up from 2.5 just
2 weeks ago ohhhh how i bozoed
my mistress zippin in & out of my carrier
nippin at her legs tuggin
at her arms grapplin & peek-a-booin neath
her boho skirts in doc white’s office grass wild
desert free at 12 weeks old i curveted round
the room lemur like cute & funny while doc
& nurse struggled to catch & hold me
i wriggled scooched writhed & had to be
stuck 3 damn times to get just my booster &
rabies shot & ohhhh how i drama queened
screeched to the hinterlands & afterwards felt
worm limp & refused to be held or touched
by mistress’s wise kind hands & no i didn’t
give a good goddamn bout nothin in life
but today i’m fresh & frisky after sleepin
on mistress’s tailbone crunched last week while
chasin me when she called i bolted kazam ha ha ha
she fell backwards kaboom hit the coffee table corner
kabam lurched forward kabang landed on her left knee
uh-oh now she’s gonna limp ouchee when she marches
to protest federal takeover of dc where mayor murial & police
chief pamela are black women she’ll limp marchin to challenge
the federal white washin of black history at the smithsonian where
secretary dr lonnie is a black man & one of mistress’s protest signs
reads ‘more black cats no fascist kings’ gimme my salmon in goat
milk gravy yummeee
& no that’s not what i got fed fore she adopted me at
columbus humane where i was surrendered from a house
with w-a-a-ay too many cats & where i’d been isolated
but mistress chose me cause black cats get downed
most often cause colorism’s spread to the animal kingdom
white furred blue-eyed cats are valued more
but now wowzah va-va-voom i’m a 4-month-old
grown ass gal & i be runnin it round here oh yeah
imperious i vault from my high-rise condo tower
entrechat from mistress’s green leather couch cause
i be the queen & she be the art-tivist who pays the
bills—hallelujah
but last week when we visited colony cats i hunched up low
growled badass bitch bossed a 10-week-old black boy kitty
rescued from a hoarder cause mistress thought she’d adopt
& name him shazad cause he’s cuddly & well socialized
but—his head’s too big & his green eyes bulge & he’s got a
wh-o-o-o-le lotta toes—all signs of inbreedin
health problems & money troubles down the road
plus me & mistress got good cause not to trust strange
men in the house so she left shazad & kept lookin to find me
a lil black girlfriend so we can all be a triad not a throuple or
a polycule—& we two’ll playmate while mistress is away
dealin with black history bans & addressin justice allies
for since it was kitten season mistress found a scrawny
black girl kitty left in a cardboard box on alkyre run road
like babies are abandoned in texas dumpsters
& at clintonville cat welfare they called the lil scraggly
thing banshee cause of all her yowlin
so mistress named her shalom no w-a-a-a-y is she peaceful
she keens like gazan women for the dead after israel’s assaults
like ukrainian women mourn russia’s invasion like sudanese women
grieve their country eatin itself from inside out
& i’m more dusk than dawn so i crouched hackled & hissed
to let mistress know i am not down with her givin whinin ass shalom
all the attention in fact i just hauled off & pooped
in the wrong place & when i was pissed i did it again & mistress unloaded
hell on me kapow-pow-pow squirted cold water right in my face
cause she’s all about love and discipline about freedom and self-restraint
so i sabah the great u-turned chanted my mantra & i chillaxed—
& tho shalom’s jellyfish puny she eats like a thing possessed
so now mornins we grasp mistress’s long shweshwe skirts
& kitchen towels & clamor for our shrimp & veggie pate
then we spend time pawin at the mouse pointer on
mistress’s computer screen while she’s writin her ‘aubade
to existential fuckery’ & makin plans to fructify despite
whatever & me & shalom bat plushies & stealth creep
& gnaw fringe on the black & white cotton
moroccan bedspread mistress brought back from marrakech
where she learned about the arab trans-saharan slave trade
—oh good goddamn—then we window stalk squirrels feastin
in the backyard garden & keep our keen ears open to mornin
orisons & our amber eyes peeled on the front porch songbird
sanctuary cardinals finches bluejays then mistress
harnesses us while she sits sippin mornin mocha
among her tangerine orchids marmalade gladiolus
lime majesty palms chestnut money & carnelian
dogwood tree & we watch as sometimes unhoused folks
stop to talk & ask her for alms like poor mr jack needs
water to take his sugar pill & food to curb his hunger
& money to tide him over till his 1st
of the month check & while mistress is
readin ‘being jewish after the destruction
of gaza: a reckoning’ between chattin
with neighbors and passersby she declines
a request to rent a room to white ukrainians
for they have another safe option in florida—of all places—
where the naacp issued a warnin that florida’s openly
hostile to black & brown & lgbtq+ folks so for now
that extra upstairs bedroom is for shalom & me—y-a-a-a-y
& sometimes we sculk down to the numinous basement where
when she’s stressed mistress goes to wash dry & fold our clothes
& where there’s another queen-sized bed—just in case
things get even crazier & folks’ll hafta hide trans &
migrant people like black & white abolitionists helped
black folks escape on the underground railroad like some
good dutch citizens hid refugees like anne frank & her
family from the nazis like refugees mary joseph & jesus
fled violence in bethlehem for safety in a foreign
land—& then there’s the middle fingerless black
handyman who walked in looked around the living
room at the cat friendly lady & parlor & chinese fan
palms then said to mistress you’re eccentric—
but she servant of god didn’t even blink
for maybe it was all the green plants
or all the blue art or black shalom & me but
he must not know we bring good luck & we
counteract the dark power of whiteness
then mistress was asked by her white-gazing
gay male neighbor are you gonna be a crazy
cat lady when she brought us two
black kittens into her own home so
we’ll have each other’s company
while she’s away earnin money
dismantlin dominance promotin
equal rights & overdue reparations
& leadin workshops for privileged white
folks of conscience while triggerin her bone
deep trans-generational trauma plus there’s
the straight white hvac man who upsold &
spooked her speakin appalachian tennessean
wearin an america first cap & american flags
etched onto boots he tromped in thruout our home
tho mistress asked him to remove em & the white
butt crack plumber & his son who ghosted us & the
white electrician who handed her a tiny blond white
plastic jesus he’d bought on amazon but he didn’t
keep his word & she hadta shout him down for her
receipt while we hid in the closet coulda been misogynoir
flashin back to our american history of black women’s
forced free manual labor forced free sexual labor & forced
free reproductive labor—then while me & shalom sunned
in our fur coats & sniffed our pheromones mistress
received another $500 vet bill from doctor white
cause of my escalatin let’s call em unpretty behaviors cause now
shalom is mistress’s favorite for that lil bitch purrs in thankfulness
& makes biscuits sittin in mistress’s lap while thrummin like a vibrator
& trillin like a passerine & now shalom gets to rest on the highest cat
condo seat & shalom sleeps at the head of mistress’s bed near her photos
taken in joburg with de klerk & with madiba mandela
for i sabah should feckin slash shalom’s throat with my 7-month-old razor
teeth & yesterday i was on purpose bad again uh-oh & mistress & me waged war
again & mistress—whose word is her bond—tho she knows black cats
like black men are downed disproportionately
still she said —oh hell no—
if i can’t or i won’t govern myself then she will
rehome me
Risë Kevalshar Collins, a Columbus based poet, holds a BFA in Drama, a BFA in Creative Writing, a MSW in Social Work, and she’s a candidate for the MFA in Creative Writing at OSU. Risë’s prose has been published in Michigan Quarterly Review, Texas Review, North American Review, and The EastOver Anthology of Rural Stories, 2023 Writers of Color. Her poetry’s been published in Tupelo Quarterly, Indianapolis Review, Minnesota Review, ANMLY, and The Normal School. She’s been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, for Best New Poets, Best of the Net, and she’s the recipient of an Alexa Rose Foundation Grant.
