Cough, cough, cough cacophony
and justify
next to the jumping garbage can, ash can
split sliver of a view to a mountain range,
and an iron ******* symbol of pollution,
as someone once described it.

On a wooden patio
Jerks, cousins, strangers all breathing heavy
and avoiding the essential questions.
All consumed with their radio, stereo, headphone
intermission, remission, warped time machine
evil, sneezing ideas.

Before you ask--no, I have not seen your cat.  
Your cat left the house around 4:45 pm, while you were at work, I'm assuming. I'm assuming your room-mate left the door open and the cat saw an open space, a new world, waiting to be scratched and pawed and possibly snacked on. The cat walked out on you in this way.

The cat padded along the wooden steps, peacefully, quietly.
No one was around except a grasshopper, who died in the cat's mouth later.
Meanwhile, your room-mate brushed her teeth and did mouth rinse for as long as thirty-five seconds.

There were puddles in the road, and a car drove by and water splashed up into your cat's little face.  The little face of your cat winced, and the little body shook off the water, and kept cat walking to nowhere in particular.  Your cat--the zen master.

Seemingly out of no where, a large tree appeared, and the cat walked around the tree to the other side.  A squirrel paused to observe the cat, cautiously.  

Like the squirrel, the cat then proceeded cautiously around his or her own predator, the dog.  The dog was chained to a fence though, and your cat was free.

When you came home from work, you were so tired you fell asleep and did not even notice that your cat was gone.

The frustrating pocket sweater lies
next to a glowing, sharp calculator and the vacuum
smells up the whole place with purple air.
The knot on the table is promising,
the curling band-aid twists over a sheepskin pencil pouch
and dreams continuously of health-care, and affordability.
A series (or a set) of remote controls telling the canned beans to drink from the yellow mug, that's the lucky one.
Cat-tails whimper, and an old man hugs the edge of the moon,
making sure the fork in the road is repaved.

Flossing, a girl looks up into the eyes of the lawyer and asks him,
"Have you ever seen me before?"
A running start the clock gets before it jams into the car,
with the other undesirables.
Counting their blessings, the smaller plants assemble before the dawn of the helicopter, to plead with their feather-dusting friends.

Keep up the good work, a construction worker yelled across a desert,
to a tree. A huge tree with sparkling fruit and splinters waiting to be annoying.

Coffee creamer rain drops,
wet and thirsty and cursing the turkey
who said too much water was too bad.

Bring on the damp leaves
and the damp seats of pants.
Splash on droplets dropping from branch
to sea level.

Salvia, spit it up, into your
baby bird's mouth and
drop some on me accidentally.

Flood tiny concrete rooms,
irrigate me.
Smother in luke-warm raindrops,
and I scream when stink-bugs press their
wet little pad toes on me.

Dampen everything!

The bubbling smugness that coagulates
in the core of my psyche is unstoppable.

It's a blob.
It justifies and frees,
it separates for days at a time
and then meets again
with calculated oomph.

A summer day,
warm and comatose.
One where algae festers in ponds
and frogs ribbit and jump
at the buzz of dragon fly ***.

Bugs and sweat thrive on these kinds of days
but the grass browns slowly under a shrouding sunny ski.
Bodies feel loose and lazy,
like jazz,
and words don't form as easily.

We scratch ourselves instead
and sit real far apart.
Hunger reduces to nothing
and our torsos taper and stretch.

You've had a best friend, you say
but have you?
Like where you're sitting there
and problems are dirt
and dirt is grass
and grass is growing
and grass is weeds
and weeds are prairie
and deer and rabbits run through
and nature runs its course, too.