Weekly Ritual

4 o’clock on a Sunday, shadows skate on cinder block walls. Calico cries crease and fold the still evening air. She pushes a cart, plastic wheels grating warped concrete. Dry dust stains the stones, as she shuffles slippered feet, silent as a snowy alley. The cart parks on the corner of Hill and Nottingham. She sets ceramic saucers on the wall and fills them both with seventy-year-old dexterity and homemade tuna salad. The meows pour forth in a matted wave. We all sip lemonade and smoke long cigarettes from the porch as we watch Miss Dowry’s Stray Cat Buffet.