casual paintbrushes

she doesn’t have a cat
so she stencils paw-prints
on the floor the paint brown
like the mud which in fact
she is glad the cat she doesn’t have
doesn’t track
she pulls out her phone
so words float like stars
on a still pool
sunfish dart
beneath the stars

not poetry but studies for poetry
an insistent inability to set pencil to paper
spurred by the vague desire
to record racing thoughts
there are letters you drop into slots
even though you don’t understand the signs

eternally misrehearsing a phone number
few or none of the buttons look right
turn off the moonlight
dial quickly
unwittingly
scattering the sunfish

before i awoke to your white night
and could brush my hair in the blues of your eyes
i saw mirrors in icicles surrounding my sunglasses
i answered a knock at the border with incorrect papers
i wrapped the cast on my arm in a plastic bag
to join men i didn’t know in a country sauna
i sank into a subway though i couldn’t see bottom

she gave me a photograph
from the future of a kitten
the cat has a young girl
you can see in the girl’s eyes
she is thinking of the cat
and even (possibly) of me
(there’s that look in her eyes)

you can see in the cat’s eyes
the girl & the photographer are less
than the sunfish trying the phone
she’s disconnected

deep in the background
in the cat’s paw you can see

(... casual paintbrushes)