Deriving the Greatest Benefit from What Happened
To see death you must forget what it’s called,
someone admired once said in their own way,
one of those birds with a polite flutter of color
you could miss if you didn’t waste time
like a rufous-sided towhee with license to
unleaf too many bugs snug through long winter.
I stand now in the room where I watch
a particular instrument groom, my generous
cat, bored tonight with killing, having gifted his
spittle-covered, ribbed knuckle-toy with an after-puff
of catnip still redolent in its muff of imitation prey hunkered
down now, fake tooth and nail with skin-papered
rib-struts delicate enough to lift on displaced
air before my foot arrived there unintentional
and shivered my imagination out of its evening hole,
oh stray exaggerations that bring me, yes,
once again home, where the end shall one day find me
played out and paper-thin and offer up the hollow remainder.
Even my hair seems comfortably bewildered, pointing
confidently in different directions the way I’ve been doing.
Then a stupid leaf falls on my preoccupied head. I don’t brush it away.
If you don’t have anything to lose, you’re not paying attention.