Mewling

We are hyper-aware and self-conscious to a fault —

lackluster beings full of barbeque-flavored chips and bubbly water.

The squirrels scramble like apostrophes through the scrubby brush,

relating amorphous flights of branches and seeds,

the scrawny language of pre-coffee collages in what dawn’s light hasn’t risen to yet.

The highway’s early shuffling parade of big rigs rattle the windows to wake us to edgy stuff like,

“You can’t talk to me like that first thing in the morning.”

And then snoozing through until an alarm’s squelch is borne.

Barely audible, the bluer grosbeaks dive and perch as usual,

scaring up some breakfast in the great gray divide

of porch and driveway and cedars.

We are flaky and soft in our attainment of leisure.

We flunk through the days like toroidal flats in a shiny doughnut shop’s sharper instruments.

“Play it one last time, Gorgonzola. It’ll

never

be the same here again.”

Typing through a cold front’s full-body shivers,

the moon gets ornery behind the curtain’s gauzy sheen.