38 Cents

in between dances

she looks for her last chance

picks at old wounds

long past infection

every pulse has a past

bad enough to scare

the devil

even on the nights

he turns in early

they’re all the same to her

since he walked out

left her with 3 kids

38 cents on the counter

a pack of Camels

one missing

 

Cathy Porter’s poetry has appeared in Plainsongs, Homestead Review, California Quarterly, Hubbub, Cottonwood, Comstock Review, and various other journals. She has two chapbooks available from Finishing Line Press: A Life In The Day (2012), and Dust And Angels (2014), as well as two chapbooks published by Dancing Girl Press in Chicago: Exit Songs (2016), and 16 Days (2019). Cathy is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and serves as a special editor for the journal Fine Lines in Omaha, NE, where she lives with her husband Lenny and their dog Marley, and cats Cody and Mini.