Melancholy Cat Poem for Lisa L.

I spend the morning wrapping duct tape around my gloves.  As usual it's the index finger where they've blown out. I spend half a shower meditating on the transfer station over Southside off Hopkins road. Sparrows darting in the trash between lumbering equipment. I worry needlessly about my suspension under three quarters a ton of plaster, brick and mortar. I decide to leave the tail gate on until I get there. Still sitting, I turn off the hot water and let the last of it run off me like a battered hillside. I say Thy will, not mine, be done.

I tell myself you can't have it all, baby. I'll get you a buck knife, but not until you're older. You can have a week's worth of work, really only today, but that's all. You can have this field running under high tension wires filled up with Queen Anne's Lace. It will be shoulder high, just like you imagined, the smell of it overwhelming as you come over the hill, but you'll have lost every legitimate reason to go down that road ever again. You can have the sunrise. You can have an old flat headed shovel to unload the debris. You can have this cat. Clear a space out on the bookshelf over your desk and she'll leave one eye open as she sleeps, keeping careful watch over you.