JL Nash
Found a Manuscript
Updated: Sep 17, 2022
Found a manuscript in a forgotten file on my computer.
Here’s one of the poems from it.

SWING
There’s not enough room
My mother says, annoyance breathing
Out over her teeth
To swing a cat
I say, self-doubt inching
Forward like
An inchworm
I’ve never seen an inchworm
To swing any cat
One must have some form
Of algorithm
Taking into consideration
The arm length of the human
The body length of the cat.
It is indeed small
Crib-like in its structure
A built-in concrete slab for a shelf
Where Miriam, the maid used to sleep
No matter how tiny that single room appeared
We accepted it as a living place for her
Who dared not question the conditions of pay
We gave our dogs more space
Silently she would clean our house,
Watch over my brother and I
Laugh and smile with my mother
Sleep on a hard concrete slab
In a room so small
I wonder in this new age of equality
Whether all the servants’ quarters
Have been destroyed or
Perhaps renovated for an extra toilet
In houses too big
Where dogs live comfortably
And the cat clawed walls
Still stand, testament to
When Miriam loved us.