Still Life With Cat, Cricket, Cops, and a Dead Man

Miesha, sleeping
in a bookcase,
its doors left open for
easy access,
books of poetry above her.

I seize one from the shelf,
it’s a new and selected works
of William Stafford, leaf through
and find and read again
“The Animal
That Drank Up Sound,”

thinking of the single cricket
that made it all come
whooshing back.

Outside a million cops
or thereabouts
dealing with an accident on
the street that killed
someone.
I am sure I didn’t
know the dead man,
or the car that got him —

I don’t know anyone here,
just me and the cat dealing
with what comes our way,
sleeping when we can
and peering out the windows
until we get bored, shrug,
and go back to our quiet rooms
where we live
without a cricket to wake us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T