Down Any Street That Names Us Urban

by JC Alfier

The apartment manager catches me
as I unlock my fourth-floor flat, shouts

It’s your goddamn fault
the cat got trapped
in the stairwell—
quit slamming the hallway door.

Opposite our building
a florist dumps clusters
of unbought carnations
and lapel roses into a sidewalk bin.

    He’d marked them down for a prom.

With a bitter laugh a homeless woman
crushes them in her fists.

    Her fingers turn spicy-sweet.

On the apartment’s front lawn
I bury the cat under a tuft
of fertile spring grass.

    I had never slammed the hallway door.

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JC Alfier’s (they/them) most recent book of poetry is The Shadow Field. Journal credits include Copper Nickel, Faultline, Fugue, Notre Dame Review, Penn Review, River Styx, and Vassar Review. They are also a collage artist after the styles of Francesca Woodman, Brittany Markert, Alix Cléo Roubaud, and Katrien De Blauwer.