Ted Charnley

Baltimore Cats

We Baltimore cats, bearing our young

soon after coming in heat,

yowl obscenities, prowl tiny yards,

spit on back-alley streets.

 

We Baltimore cats, napping off lunch

panhandled outside cafés,

stir with aromas of roofer’s tar,

yesterday’s fish and Old Bay.

 

We Baltimore cats, rousing when sun

serves us that fish on concrete,

dance with our kittens soon after dark,

arch upon six-toed feet.

 

We Baltimore cats, cool for tonight,

curl up in crawlspaces, close and tight.

Ted Charnley’s verse has appeared in multiple issues of such journals as The Orchards, The Road Not Taken, Think, Blue Unicorn, and Slant, and in anthologies. His first book, An Invocation of Fragments, was released by Kelsay Books in 2022, featuring two nominees for a Pushcart Prize and a finalist for the Frost Farm Prize. He lives with his wife in a 200-year-old farmhouse they restored in central Maryland.