The cat believes I sleep in the wrong times and the wrong ways. Never in sun, never with a belly full of meat or blood between the teeth. Once she attacked my workstation, relentless—all tooth and strife, she would have bled it if it bled. She would conquer kings if her bones were proportional to her beast. She has no notion of rent or health insurance or that we live under the ceremony of capitalism and someone else’s god. This matters little when she brings me live, unbroken mice—wise cat mother to tall, stupid daughter—and waits expectantly for the blood and afterward, in the sun, her place settled upon my hip.
Emma Johnson-Rivard lives in Maryland where she writes poetry and weird fiction. Her work has appeared in Fearsome Critters, Coffin Bell, Moon City Review, and others.