Archive Selection--By Kelley White--United States--Originally Published April 27, 2017

There is a problem on our block

The old woman

who drives the gold 1963 Ford Falcon

found a litter of kittens in her hosta bushes.

The mother moved the kittens

three times, first to the empty dog house,

where the woman had laid a carpet remnant,

then to a hole she had dug near the stone fence,

then to somewhere quite unknown.

Kids found the mother

dead, run-over in the street.

Miss Emma has all the unemployed men

in the neighborhood out searching.

They are climbing ladders

and crawling under porches.

They are opening broken doors

and shining lights into abandoned houses.

Everyone is listening very very carefully.

She has me searching too.

Pediatrician Kelley White worked in inner city Philadelphia and now works in rural New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in journals including Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA. Her most recent books are Toxic Environment (Boston Poet Press) and Two Birds in Flame (Beech River Books.) She received a 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant.